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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3262-0.txt b/3262-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fef60d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/3262-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2590 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pilgrims of Hope and Chants for +Socialists, by William Morris + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Pilgrims of Hope and Chants for Socialists + + +Author: William Morris + + + +Release Date: October 5, 2014 [eBook #3262] +[This file was first posted on March 2, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE AND CHANTS +FOR SOCIALISTS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1915 Longmans, Green and Company edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + +THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE +AND +CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS + + + BY + WILLIAM MORRIS + + * * * * * + + LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY + 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON + FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK + BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS + 1915 + + All rights reserved + + + + +FORWARD + + +“The Pilgrims of Hope” appeared in _The Commonweal_ between March 1885 +and July 1886, its title being decided on with the publication of the +second part. Sections I, IV, and VIII were included in _Poems by the +Way_ after the author abandoned his intention of revising it as a whole. +“To be concluded” stands at the bottom of the last instalment. + +“Chants for Socialists,” consisting of songs and poems written for +various occasions and collected into a penny pamphlet published by the +Socialist League in 1885, is here printed entire (with the exception of +“The Message of the March Wind,” pp. 3–6), although “The Day is Coming,” +“The Voice of Toil,” and “All for the Cause,” were included in _Poems by +the Way_. “A Death Song,” which also appears there, was written for the +funeral of Alfred Linnell, who died from injuries received at a +Demonstration in Trafalgar Square on November 20, 1887. It first +appeared in pamphlet form, with a musical setting by Malcolm Lawson. + +“May Day” [1892] and “May Day, 1894,” appeared in _Justice_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +PILGRIMS OF HOPE: + THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND 3 + THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET 7 + SENDING TO THE WAR 11 + MOTHER AND SON 15 + NEW BIRTH 19 + THE NEW PROLETARIAN 24 + IN PRISON—AND AT HOME 30 + THE HALF OF LIFE GONE 35 + A NEW FRIEND 39 + READY TO DEPART 43 + A GLIMPSE OF THE COMING DAY 47 + MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE 51 + THE STORY’S ENDING 54 +CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS: + THE DAY IS COMING 61 + THE VOICE OF TOIL 65 + NO MASTER 67 + ALL FOR THE CAUSE 68 + THE MARCH OF THE WORKERS 70 + DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN 73 + A DEATH SONG 75 + MAY DAY [1892] 77 + MAY DAY, 1894 80 + + + + +THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE + + +I +THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND + + + FAIR now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding + With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; + Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding + The green-growing acres with increase begun. + + Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying + Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field; + Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing + On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed. + + From township to township, o’er down and by tillage + Far, far have we wandered and long was the day, + But now cometh eve at the end of the village, + Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey. + + There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us + The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about; + The moon’s rim is rising, a star glitters o’er us, + And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt. + + Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over + The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. + Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover; + This eve art thou given to gladness and me. + + Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken: + Three fields further on, as they told me down there, + When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken, + We might see from the hill-top the great city’s glare. + + Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! From London it bloweth, + And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest; + Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth, + But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best. + + Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story + How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; + And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory + Has been but a burden they scarce might abide. + + Hark! the March wind again of a people is telling; + Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, + That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling + My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim. + + This land we have loved in our love and our leisure + For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach; + The wide hills o’er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, + The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach. + + The singers have sung and the builders have builded, + The painters have fashioned their tales of delight; + For what and for whom hath the world’s book been gilded, + When all is for these but the blackness of night? + + How long and for what is their patience abiding? + How oft and how oft shall their story be told, + While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding + And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old? + + * * * * * + + COME back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire, + And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; + For there in a while shall be rest and desire, + And there shall the morrow’s uprising be sweet. + + Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind us + And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night, + How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us; + For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light. + + Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished, + Like the autumn-sown wheat ’neath the snow lying green, + Like the love that o’ertook us, unawares and uncherished, + Like the babe ’neath thy girdle that groweth unseen, + + So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth— + Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear; + It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth; + It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear: + + For it beareth the message: “Rise up on the morrow + And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife; + Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow, + And seek for men’s love in the short days of life.” + + But lo, the old inn, and the lights and the fire, + And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; + Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, + And to-morrow’s uprising to deeds shall be sweet. + + + +II +THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET + + + IN the midst of the bridge there we stopped and we wondered + In London at last, and the moon going down, + All sullied and red where the mast-wood was sundered + By the void of the night-mist, the breath of the town. + + On each side lay the City, and Thames ran between it + Dark, struggling, unheard ’neath the wheels and the feet. + A strange dream it was that we ever had seen it, + And strange was the hope we had wandered to meet. + + Was all nought but confusion? What man and what master + Had each of these people that hastened along? + Like a flood flowed the faces, and faster and faster + Went the drift of the feet of the hurrying throng. + + Till all these seemed but one thing, and we twain another, + A thing frail and feeble and young and unknown; + What sign mid all these to tell foeman from brother? + What sign of the hope in our hearts that had grown? + + * * * * * + + WE went to our lodging afar from the river, + And slept and forgot—and remembered in dreams; + And friends that I knew not I strove to deliver + From a crowd that swept o’er us in measureless streams, + + Wending whither I knew not: till meseemed I was waking + To the first night in London, and lay by my love, + And she worn and changed, and my very heart aching + With a terror of soul that forbade me to move. + + Till I woke, in good sooth, and she lay there beside me, + Fresh, lovely in sleep; but awhile yet I lay, + For the fear of the dream-tide yet seemed to abide me + In the cold and sad time ere the dawn of the day. + + Then I went to the window, and saw down below me + The market-wains wending adown the dim street, + And the scent of the hay and the herbs seemed to know me, + And seek out my heart the dawn’s sorrow to meet. + + They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless faces + The dull houses stared on the prey they had trapped; + ’Twas as though they had slain all the fair morning places + Where in love and in leisure our joyance had happed. + + My heart sank; I murmured, “What’s this we are doing + In this grim net of London, this prison built stark + With the greed of the ages, our young lives pursuing + A phantom that leads but to death in the dark?” + + Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it striving, + And now here and there a few people went by. + As an image of what was once eager and living + Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to die. + + Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its pleasure + Was light, and unworthy, had been and was gone; + If hope had deceived us, if hid were its treasure, + Nought now would be left us of all life had won. + + * * * * * + + O LOVE, stand beside me; the sun is uprisen + On the first day of London; and shame hath been here. + For I saw our new life like the bars of a prison, + And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear. + + Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes are chiding! + Yea, but life is no longer as stories of yore; + From us from henceforth no fair words shall be hiding + The nights of the wretched, the days of the poor. + + Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we have faltered, + For ourselves, for each other, while yet we were twain; + And no whit of the world by our sorrow was altered, + Our faintness grieved nothing, our fear was in vain. + + Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our passion, + We shall feel all henceforth as we felt it erewhile; + But now from all this the due deeds we shall fashion + Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without guile. + + Let us grieve then—and help every soul in our sorrow; + Let us fear—and press forward where few dare to go; + Let us falter in hope—and plan deeds for the morrow, + The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the foe. + + As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping, + And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart’s embrace, + While all round about him the bullets are sweeping, + But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his place; + + Yea, so let our lives be! e’en such that hereafter, + When the battle is won and the story is told, + Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter, + And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold. + +NOTE.—This section had the following note in _The Commonweal_. It is the +intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in the +“Message of the March Wind” were already touched by sympathy with the +cause of the people. + + + +III +SENDING TO THE WAR + + + IT was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun, + But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire’s thick-lipped + son, + A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away, + And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to say + Of the war and its why and wherefore—and we said it often enough; + The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough. + But I held my peace and wondered; for I thought of the folly of men, + The fair lives ruined and broken that ne’er could be mended again; + And the tale by lies bewildered, and no cause for a man to choose; + Nothing to curse or to bless—just a game to win or to lose. + + But here were the streets of London—strife stalking wide in the world; + And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. + And who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops displayed + The toys of rich men’s folly, by blinded labour made; + And still from naught to nothing the bright-skinned horses drew + Dull men and sleek-faced women with never a deed to do; + While all about and around them the street-flood ebbed and flowed, + Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed ’neath the load. + Lo the sons of an ancient people! And for this they fought and fell + In the days by fame made glorious, in the tale that singers tell. + + We two we stood in the street in the midst of a mighty crowd, + The sound of its mingled murmur in the heavens above was loud, + And earth was foul with its squalor—that stream of every day, + The hurrying feet of labour, the faces worn and grey, + Were a sore and grievous sight, and enough and to spare had I seen + Of hard and pinching want midst our quiet fields and green; + But all was nothing to this, the London holiday throng. + Dull and with hang-dog gait they stood or shuffled along, + While the stench from the lairs they had lain in last night went up in + the wind, + And poisoned the sun-lit spring: no story men can find + Is fit for the tale of their lives; no word that man hath made + Can tell the hue of their faces, or their rags by filth o’er-laid: + For this hath our age invented—these are the sons of the free, + Who shall bear our name triumphant o’er every land and sea. + Read ye their souls in their faces, and what shall help you there? + Joyless, hopeless, shameless, angerless, set is their stare: + This is the thing we have made, and what shall help us now, + For the field hath been laboured and tilled and the teeth of the + dragon shall grow. + + But why are they gathered together? what is this crowd in the street? + This is a holiday morning, though here and there we meet + The hurrying tradesman’s broadcloth, or the workman’s basket of tools. + Men say that at last we are rending the snares of knaves and fools; + That a cry from the heart of the nation against the foe is hurled, + And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. + The soldiers are off to the war, we are here to see the sight, + And all our griefs shall be hidden by the thought of our country’s + might. + ’Tis the ordered anger of England and her hope for the good of the + Earth + That we to-day are speeding, and many a gift of worth + Shall follow the brand and the bullet, and our wrath shall be no + curse, + But a blessing of life to the helpless—unless we are liars and worse— + And these that we see are the senders; these are they that speed + The dread and the blessing of England to help the world at its need. + + Sick unto death was my hope, and I turned and looked on my dear, + And beheld her frightened wonder, and her grief without a tear, + And knew how her thought was mine—when, hark! o’er the hubbub and + noise, + Faint and a long way off, the music’s measured voice, + And the crowd was swaying and swaying, and somehow, I knew not why, + A dream came into my heart of deliverance drawing anigh. + Then with roll and thunder of drums grew the music louder and loud, + And the whole street tumbled and surged, and cleft was the holiday + crowd, + Till two walls of faces and rags lined either side of the way. + Then clamour of shouts rose upward, as bright and glittering gay + Came the voiceful brass of the band, and my heart beat fast and fast, + For the river of steel came on, and the wrath of England passed + Through the want and the woe of the town, and strange and wild was my + thought, + And my clenched hands wandered about as though a weapon they sought. + + Hubbub and din was behind them, and the shuffling haggard throng, + Wandering aimless about, tangled the street for long; + But the shouts and the rhythmic noise we still heard far away, + And my dream was become a picture of the deeds of another day. + Far and far was I borne, away o’er the years to come, + And again was the ordered march, and the thunder of the drum, + And the bickering points of steel, and the horses shifting about + ’Neath the flashing swords of the captains—then the silence after the + shout— + Sun and wind in the street, familiar things made clear, + Made strange by the breathless waiting for the deeds that are drawing + anear. + For woe had grown into will, and wrath was bared of its sheath, + And stark in the streets of London stood the crop of the dragon’s + teeth. + Where then in my dream were the poor and the wall of faces wan? + Here and here by my side, shoulder to shoulder of man, + Hope in the simple folk, hope in the hearts of the wise, + For the happy life to follow, or death and the ending of lies, + Hope is awake in the faces angerless now no more, + Till the new peace dawn on the world, the fruit of the people’s war. + + War in the world abroad a thousand leagues away, + While custom’s wheel goes round and day devoureth day. + Peace at home!—what peace, while the rich man’s mill is strife, + And the poor is the grist that he grindeth, and life devoureth life? + + + +IV +MOTHER AND SON + + + NOW sleeps the land of houses, and dead night holds the street, + And there thou liest, my baby, and sleepest soft and sweet; + My man is away for awhile, but safe and alone we lie; + And none heareth thy breath but thy mother, and the moon looking down + from the sky + On the weary waste of the town, as it looked on the grass-edged road + Still warm with yesterday’s sun, when I left my old abode, + Hand in hand with my love, that night of all nights in the year; + When the river of love o’erflowed and drowned all doubt and fear, + And we two were alone in the world, and once, if never again, + We knew of the secret of earth and the tale of its labour and pain. + + Lo amidst London I lift thee, and how little and light thou art, + And thou without hope or fear, thou fear and hope of my heart! + Lo here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life; + But how will it be if thou livest, and enterest into the strife, + And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee, + When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet ’twixt thee and me + Shall rise that wall of distance, that round each one doth grow, + And maketh it hard and bitter each other’s thought to know? + Now, therefore, while yet thou art little and hast no thought of thine + own, + I will tell thee a word of the world, of the hope whence thou hast + grown, + + Of the love that once begat thee, of the sorrow that hath made + Thy little heart of hunger, and thy hands on my bosom laid. + Then mayst thou remember hereafter, as whiles when people say + All this hath happened before in the life of another day; + So mayst thou dimly remember this tale of thy mother’s voice, + As oft in the calm of dawning I have heard the birds rejoice, + As oft I have heard the storm-wind go moaning through the wood, + And I knew that earth was speaking, and the mother’s voice was good. + + Now, to thee alone will I tell it that thy mother’s body is fair, + In the guise of the country maidens who play with the sun and the air, + Who have stood in the row of the reapers in the August afternoon, + Who have sat by the frozen water in the highday of the moon, + When the lights of the Christmas feasting were dead in the house on + the hill, + And the wild geese gone to the salt marsh had left the winter still. + Yea, I am fair, my firstling; if thou couldst but remember me! + The hair that thy small hand clutcheth is a goodly sight to see; + I am true, but my face is a snare; soft and deep are my eyes, + And they seem for men’s beguiling fulfilled with the dreams of the + wise. + Kind are my lips, and they look as though my soul had learned + Deep things I have never heard of. My face and my hands are burned + By the lovely sun of the acres; three months of London-town + And thy birth-bed have bleached them indeed—“But lo, where the edge of + the gown” + (So said thy father one day) “parteth the wrist white as curd + From the brown of the hands that I love, bright as the wing of a + bird.” + + Such is thy mother, O firstling, yet strong as the maidens of old, + Whose spears and whose swords were the warders of homestead, of field + and of fold. + Oft were my feet on the highway, often they wearied the grass; + From dusk unto dusk of the summer three times in a week would I pass + To the downs from the house on the river through the waves of the + blossoming corn. + Fair then I lay down in the even, and fresh I arose on the morn, + And scarce in the noon was I weary. Ah, son, in the days of thy + strife, + If thy soul could harbour a dream of the blossom of my life! + It would be as sunlit meadows beheld from a tossing sea, + And thy soul should look on a vision of the peace that is to be. + + Yet, yet the tears on my cheek! And what is this doth move + My heart to thy heart, beloved, save the flood of yearning love? + For fair and fierce is thy father, and soft and strange are his eyes + That look on the days that shall be with the hope of the brave and the + wise. + It was many a day that we laughed as over the meadows we walked, + And many a day I hearkened and the pictures came as he talked; + It was many a day that we longed, and we lingered late at eve + Ere speech from speech was sundered, and my hand his hand could leave. + Then I wept when I was alone, and I longed till the daylight came; + And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping dame + (No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes + Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the limes; + All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues leapt + Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from it + crept, + And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor, + And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open door. + The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he stood + Beyond the crimson daisies and the bush of southernwood. + Then side by side together through the grey-walled place we went, + And O the fear departed, and the rest and sweet content! + + SON, sorrow and wisdom he taught me, and sore I grieved and learned + As we twain grew into one; and the heart within me burned + With the very hopes of his heart. Ah, son, it is piteous, + But never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus; + So may these lonely words about thee creep and cling, + These words of the lonely night in the days of our wayfaring. + Many a child of woman to-night is born in the town, + The desert of folly and wrong; and of what and whence are they grown? + Many and many an one of wont and use is born; + For a husband is taken to bed as a hat or a ribbon is worn. + Prudence begets her thousands: “Good is a housekeeper’s life, + So shall I sell my body that I may be matron and wife.” + “And I shall endure foul wedlock and bear the children of need.” + Some are there born of hate—many the children of greed. + “I, I too can be wedded, though thou my love hast got.” + “I am fair and hard of heart, and riches shall be my lot.” + And all these are the good and the happy, on whom the world dawns + fair. + O son, when wilt thou learn of those that are born of despair, + As the fabled mud of the Nile that quickens under the sun + With a growth of creeping things, half dead when just begun? + E’en such is the care of Nature that man should never die, + Though she breed of the fools of the earth, and the dregs of the city + sty. + But thou, O son, O son, of very love wert born, + When our hope fulfilled bred hope, and fear was a folly outworn; + On the eve of the toil and the battle all sorrow and grief we weighed, + We hoped and we were not ashamed, we knew and we were not afraid. + + Now waneth the night and the moon—ah, son, it is piteous + That never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus. + But sure from the wise and the simple shall the mighty come to birth; + And fair were my fate, beloved, if I be yet on the earth + When the world is awaken at last, and from mouth to mouth they tell + Of thy love and thy deeds and thy valour, and thy hope that nought can + quell. + + + +V +NEW BIRTH + + + IT was twenty-five years ago that I lay in my mother’s lap + New born to life, nor knowing one whit of all that should hap: + That day was I won from nothing to the world of struggle and pain, + Twenty-five years ago—and to-night am I born again. + + I look and behold the days of the years that are passed away, + And my soul is full of their wealth, for oft were they blithe and gay + As the hours of bird and of beast: they have made me calm and strong + To wade the stream of confusion, the river of grief and wrong. + + A rich man was my father, but he skulked ere I was born, + And gave my mother money, but left her life to scorn; + And we dwelt alone in our village: I knew not my mother’s “shame,” + But her love and her wisdom I knew till death and the parting came. + Then a lawyer paid me money, and I lived awhile at a school, + And learned the lore of the ancients, and how the knave and the fool + Have been mostly the masters of earth: yet the earth seemed fair and + good + With the wealth of field and homestead, and garden and river and wood; + And I was glad amidst it, and little of evil I knew + As I did in sport and pastime such deeds as a youth might do, + Who deems he shall live for ever. Till at last it befel on a day + That I came across our Frenchman at the edge of the new-mown hay, + A-fishing as he was wont, alone as he always was; + So I helped the dark old man to bring a chub to grass, + And somehow he knew of my birth, and somehow we came to be friends, + Till he got to telling me chapters of the tale that never ends; + The battle of grief and hope with riches and folly and wrong. + He told how the weak conspire, he told of the fear of the strong; + He told of dreams grown deeds, deeds done ere time was ripe, + Of hope that melted in air like the smoke of his evening pipe; + Of the fight long after hope in the teeth of all despair; + Of battle and prison and death, of life stripped naked and bare. + But to me it all seemed happy, for I gilded all with the gold + Of youth that believes not in death, nor knoweth of hope grown cold. + I hearkened and learned, and longed with a longing that had no name, + Till I went my ways to our village and again departure came. + + Wide now the world was grown, and I saw things clear and grim, + That awhile agone smiled on me from the dream-mist doubtful and dim. + I knew that the poor were poor, and had no heart or hope; + And I knew that I was nothing with the least of evils to cope; + So I thought the thoughts of a man, and I fell into bitter mood, + Wherein, except as a picture, there was nought on the earth that was + good; + Till I met the woman I love, and she asked, as folk ask of the wise, + Of the root and meaning of things that she saw in the world of lies. + I told her all I knew, and the tale told lifted the load + That made me less than a man; and she set my feet on the road. + + So we left our pleasure behind to seek for hope and for life, + And to London we came, if perchance there smouldered the embers of + strife + Such as our Frenchman had told of; and I wrote to him to ask + If he would be our master, and set the learners their task. + But “dead” was the word on the letter when it came back to me, + And all that we saw henceforward with our own eyes must we see. + So we looked and wondered and sickened; not for ourselves indeed: + My father by now had died, but he left enough for my need; + And besides, away in our village the joiner’s craft had I learned, + And I worked as other men work, and money and wisdom I earned. + Yet little from day to day in street or workshop I met + To nourish the plant of hope that deep in my heart had been set. + The life of the poor we learned, and to me there was nothing new + In their day of little deeds that ever deathward drew. + But new was the horror of London that went on all the while + That rich men played at their ease for name and fame to beguile + The days of their empty lives, and praised the deeds they did, + As though they had fashioned the earth and found out the sun long hid; + Though some of them busied themselves from hopeless day to day + With the lives of the slaves of the rich and the hell wherein they + lay. + They wrought meseems as those who should make a bargain with hell, + That it grow a little cooler, and thus for ever to dwell. + + So passed the world on its ways, and weary with waiting we were. + Men ate and drank and married; no wild cry smote the air, + No great crowd ran together to greet the day of doom; + And ever more and more seemed the town like a monstrous tomb + To us, the Pilgrims of Hope, until to-night it came, + And Hope on the stones of the street is written in letters of flame. + + This is how it befel: a workmate of mine had heard + Some bitter speech in my mouth, and he took me up at the word, + And said: “Come over to-morrow to our Radical spouting-place; + For there, if we hear nothing new, at least we shall see a new face; + He is one of those Communist chaps, and ’tis like that you two may + agree.” + So we went, and the street was as dull and as common as aught you + could see; + Dull and dirty the room. Just over the chairman’s chair + Was a bust, a Quaker’s face with nose cocked up in the air; + There were common prints on the wall of the heads of the party fray, + And Mazzini dark and lean amidst them gone astray. + Some thirty men we were of the kind that I knew full well, + Listless, rubbed down to the type of our easy-going hell. + My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat + While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and of that. + And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed + Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named. + He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue, + And even as he began it seemed as though I knew + The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before. + He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he bore, + A word that he could not refrain from many a million of men. + Nor aught seemed the sordid room and the few that were listening then + Save the hall of the labouring earth and the world which was to be. + Bitter to many the message, but sweet indeed unto me, + Of man without a master, and earth without a strife, + And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life: + Of peace and good-will he told, and I knew that in faith he spake, + But his words were my very thoughts, and I saw the battle awake, + And I followed from end to end; and triumph grew in my heart + As he called on each that heard him to arise and play his part + In the tale of the new-told gospel, lest as slaves they should live + and die. + + He ceased, and I thought the hearers would rise up with one cry, + And bid him straight enrol them; but they, they applauded indeed, + For the man was grown full eager, and had made them hearken and heed: + But they sat and made no sign, and two of the glibber kind + Stood up to jeer and to carp his fiery words to blind. + I did not listen to them, but failed not his voice to hear + When he rose to answer the carpers, striving to make more clear + That which was clear already; not overwell, I knew, + He answered the sneers and the silence, so hot and eager he grew; + But my hope full well he answered, and when he called again + On men to band together lest they live and die in vain, + In fear lest he should escape me, I rose ere the meeting was done, + And gave him my name and my faith—and I was the only one. + He smiled as he heard the jeers, and there was a shake of the hand, + He spoke like a friend long known; and lo! I was one of the band. + + And now the streets seem gay and the high stars glittering bright; + And for me, I sing amongst them, for my heart is full and light. + I see the deeds to be done and the day to come on the earth, + And riches vanished away and sorrow turned to mirth; + I see the city squalor and the country stupor gone. + And we a part of it all—we twain no longer alone + In the days to come of the pleasure, in the days that are of the + fight— + I was born once long ago: I am born again to-night. + + + +VI +THE NEW PROLETARIAN + + + HOW near to the goal are we now, and what shall we live to behold? + Will it come a day of surprise to the best of the hopeful and bold? + Shall the sun arise some morning and see men falling to work, + Smiling and loving their lives, not fearing the ill that may lurk + In every house on their road, in the very ground that they tread? + Shall the sun see famine slain, and the fear of children dead? + Shall he look adown on men set free from the burden of care, + And the earth grown like to himself, so comely, clean and fair? + Or else will it linger and loiter, till hope deferred hath spoiled + All bloom of the life of man—yea, the day for which we have toiled? + Till our hearts be turned to stone by the griefs that we have borne, + And our loving kindness seared by love from our anguish torn. + Till our hope grow a wrathful fire, and the light of the second birth + Be a flame to burn up the weeds from the lean impoverished earth. + + What’s this? Meseems it was but a little while ago + When the merest sparkle of hope set all my heart aglow! + The hope of the day was enough; but now ’tis the very day + That wearies my hope with longing. What’s changed or gone away? + Or what is it drags at my heart-strings?—is it aught save the coward’s + fear? + In this little room where I sit is all that I hold most dear— + My love, and the love we have fashioned, my wife and the little lad. + Yet the four walls look upon us with other eyes than they had, + For indeed a thing hath happened. Last week at my craft I worked, + Lest oft in the grey of the morning my heart should tell me I shirked; + But to-day I work for us three, lest he and she and I + In the mud of the street should draggle till we come to the workhouse + or die. + + Not long to tell is the story, for, as I told you before, + A lawyer paid me the money which came from my father’s store. + Well, now the lawyer is dead, and a curious tangle of theft, + It seems, is what he has lived by, and none of my money is left. + So I who have worked for my pleasure now work for utter need: + In “the noble army of labour” I now am a soldier indeed. + + “You are young, you belong to the class that you love,” saith the rich + man’s sneer; + “Work on with your class and be thankful.” All that I hearken to + hear, + Nor heed the laughter much; have patience a little while, + I will tell you what’s in my heart, nor hide a jot by guile. + When I worked pretty much for my pleasure I really worked with a will, + It was well and workmanlike done, and my fellows knew my skill, + And deemed me one of themselves though they called me gentleman Dick, + Since they knew I had some money; but now that to work I must stick, + Or fall into utter ruin, there’s something gone, I find; + The work goes, cleared is the job, but there’s something left behind; + I take up fear with my chisel, fear lies ’twixt me and my plane, + And I wake in the merry morning to a new unwonted pain. + That’s fear: I shall live it down—and many a thing besides + Till I win the poor dulled heart which the workman’s jacket hides. + Were it not for the Hope of Hopes I know my journey’s end, + And would wish I had ne’er been born the weary way to wend. + + Now further, well you may think we have lived no gentleman’s life, + My wife is my servant, and I am the servant of my wife, + And we make no work for each other; but country folk we were, + And she sickened sore for the grass and the breath of the fragrant air + That had made her lovely and strong; and so up here we came + To the northern slopes of the town to live with a country dame, + Who can talk of the field-folks’ ways: not one of the newest the + house, + The woodwork worn to the bone, its panels the land of the mouse, + Its windows rattling and loose, its floors all up and down; + But this at least it was, just a cottage left in the town. + There might you sit in our parlour in the Sunday afternoon + And watch the sun through the vine-leaves and fall to dreaming that + soon + You would see the grey team passing, their fetlocks wet with the + brook, + Or the shining mountainous straw-load: there the summer moon would + look + Through the leaves on the lampless room, wherein we sat we twain, + All London vanished away; and the morn of the summer rain + Would waft us the scent of the hay; or the first faint yellow leaves + Would flutter adown before us and tell of the acres of sheaves. + + All this hath our lawyer eaten, and to-morrow must we go + To a room near my master’s shop, in the purlieus of Soho. + No words of its shabby meanness! But that is our prison-cell + In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell + The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering spark + As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering in the dark. + + Again the rich man jeereth: “The man is a coward, or worse— + He bewails his feeble pleasure; he quails before the curse + Which many a man endureth with calm and smiling face.” + Nay, the man is a man, by your leave! Or put yourself in his place, + And see if the tale reads better. The haven of rest destroyed, + And nothing left of the life that was once so well enjoyed + But leave to live and labour, and the glimmer of hope deferred. + Now know I the cry of the poor no more as a story heard, + But rather a wordless wail forced forth from the weary heart. + Now, now when hope ariseth I shall surely know my part. + + * * * * * + + THERE’S a little more to tell. When those last words were said, + At least I was yet a-working, and earning daily bread. + But now all that is changed, and meseems adown the stair + That leads to the nethermost pit, man, wife and child must fare. + + When I joined the Communist folk, I did what in me lay + To learn the grounds of their faith. I read day after day + Whatever books I could handle, and heard about and about + What talk was going amongst them; and I burned up doubt after doubt, + Until it befel at last that to others I needs must speak + (Indeed, they pressed me to that while yet I was weaker than weak). + So I began the business, and in street-corners I spake + To knots of men. Indeed, that made my very heart ache, + So hopeless it seemed; for some stood by like men of wood; + And some, though fain to listen, but a few words understood; + And some but hooted and jeered: but whiles across some I came + Who were keen and eager to hear; as in dry flax the flame + So the quick thought flickered amongst them: and that indeed was a + feast. + So about the streets I went, and the work on my hands increased; + And to say the very truth betwixt the smooth and the rough + It was work and hope went with it, and I liked it well enough: + Nor made I any secret of all that I was at + But daily talked in our shop and spoke of this and of that. + + Then vanished my money away, and like a fool I told + Some one or two of the loss. Did that make the master bold? + Before I was one of his lot, and as queer as my head might be + I might do pretty much as I liked. Well now he sent for me + And spoke out in very words my thought of the rich man’s jeer: + “Well, sir, you have got your wish, as far as I can hear, + And are now no thief of labour, but an honest working man: + Now I’ll give you a word of warning: stay in it as long as you can, + This working lot that you like so: you’re pretty well off as you are. + So take another warning: I have thought you went too far, + And now I am quite sure of it; so make an end of your talk + At once and for ever henceforth, or out of my shop you walk; + There are plenty of men to be had who are quite as good as you. + And mind you, anywhere else you’ll scarce get work to do, + Unless you rule your tongue;—good morning; stick to your work.” + + The hot blood rose to my eyes, somewhere a thought did lurk + To finish both him and the job: but I knew now what I was, + And out of the little office in helpless rage did I pass + And went to my work, a _slave_, for the sake of my child and my sweet. + Did men look for the brand on my forehead that eve as I went through + the street? + And what was the end after all? Why, one of my shopmates heard + My next night’s speech in the street, and passed on some bitter word, + And that week came a word with my money: “You needn’t come again.” + And the shame of my four days’ silence had been but grief in vain. + + Well I see the days before me: this time we shall not die + Nor go to the workhouse at once: I shall get work by-and-by, + And shall work in fear at first, and at last forget my fear, + And drudge on from day to day, since it seems that I hold life dear. + ’Tis the lot of many millions! Yet if half of those millions knew + The hope that my heart hath learned, we should find a deed to do, + And who or what should withstand us? And I, e’en I might live + To know the love of my fellows and the gifts that earth can give. + + + +VII +IN PRISON—AND AT HOME + + + THE first of the nights is this, and I cannot go to bed; + I long for the dawning sorely, although when the night shall be dead, + Scarce to me shall the day be alive. Twice twenty-eight nights more, + Twice twenty-eight long days till the evil dream be o’er! + And he, does he count the hours as he lies in his prison-cell? + Does he nurse and cherish his pain? Nay, I know his strong heart + well, + Swift shall his soul fare forth; he is here, and bears me away, + Till hand in hand we depart toward the hope of the earlier day. + Yea, here or there he sees it: in the street, in the cell, he sees + The vision he made me behold mid the stems of the blossoming trees, + When spring lay light on the earth, and first and at last I knew + How sweet was his clinging hand, how fair were the deeds he would do. + + Nay, how wilt thou weep and be soft and cherish a pleasure in pain, + When the days and their task are before thee and awhile thou must work + for twain? + O face, thou shalt lose yet more of thy fairness, be thinner no doubt, + And be waxen white and worn by the day that he cometh out! + Hand, how pale thou shalt be! how changed from the sunburnt hand + That he kissed as it handled the rake in the noon of the summer land! + + Let me think then it is but a trifle: the neighbours have told me so; + “Two months! why that is nothing and the time will speedily go.” + ’Tis nothing—O empty bed, let me work then for his sake! + I will copy out the paper which he thought the News might take, + If my eyes may see the letters; ’tis a picture of our life + And the little deeds of our days ere we thought of prison and strife. + + Yes, neighbour, yes I am early—and I was late last night; + Bedless I wore through the hours and made a shift to write. + It was kind of you to come, nor will it grieve me at all + To tell you why he’s in prison and how the thing did befal; + For I know you are with us at heart, and belike will join us soon. + It was thus: we went to a meeting on Saturday afternoon, + At a new place down in the West, a wretched quarter enough, + Where the rich men’s houses are elbowed by ragged streets and rough, + Which are worse than they seem to be. (Poor thing! you know too well + How pass the days and the nights within that bricken hell!) + There, then, on a bit of waste we stood ’twixt the rich and the poor; + And Jack was the first to speak; that was he that you met at the door + Last week. It was quiet at first; and dull they most of them stood + As though they heeded nothing, nor thought of bad or of good, + Not even that they were poor, and haggard and dirty and dull: + Nay, some were so rich indeed that they with liquor were full, + And dull wrath rose in their souls as the hot words went by their + ears, + For they deemed they were mocked and rated by men that were more than + their peers. + But for some, they seemed to think that a prelude was all this + To the preachment of saving of souls, and hell, and endless bliss; + While some (O the hearts of slaves!) although they might understand, + When they heard their masters and feeders called thieves of wealth and + of land, + Were as angry as though _they_ were cursed. Withal there were some + that heard, + And stood and pondered it all, and garnered a hope and a word. + Ah! heavy my heart was grown as I gazed on the terrible throng. + Lo! these that should have been the glad and the deft and the strong, + How were they dull and abased as the very filth of the road! + And who should waken their souls or clear their hearts of the load? + + The crowd was growing and growing, and therewith the jeering grew; + And now that the time was come for an ugly brawl I knew, + When I saw how midst of the workmen some well-dressed men there came, + Of the scum of the well-to-do, brutes void of pity or shame; + The thief is a saint beside them. These raised a jeering noise, + And our speaker quailed before it, and the hubbub drowned his voice. + Then Richard put him aside and rose at once in his place, + And over the rags and the squalor beamed out his beautiful face, + And his sweet voice rang through the tumult, and I think the crowd + would have hushed + And hearkened his manly words; but a well-dressed reptile pushed + Right into the ring about us and screeched out infamies + That sickened the soul to hearken; till he caught my angry eyes + And my voice that cried out at him, and straight on me he turned, + A foul word smote my heart and his cane on my shoulders burned. + But e’en as a kestrel stoops down Richard leapt from his stool + And drave his strong right hand amidst the mouth of the fool. + Then all was mingled together, and away from him was I torn, + And, hustled hither and thither, on the surging crowd was borne; + But at last I felt my feet, for the crowd began to thin, + And I looked about for Richard that away from thence we might win; + When lo, the police amidst us, and Richard hustled along + Betwixt a pair of blue-coats as the doer of all the wrong! + + Little longer, friend, is the story; I scarce have seen him again; + I could not get him bail despite my trouble and pain; + And this morning he stood in the dock: for all that that might avail, + They might just as well have dragged him at once to the destined jail. + The police had got their man and they meant to keep him there, + And whatever tale was needful they had no trouble to swear. + + Well, the white-haired fool on the bench was busy it seems that day, + And so with the words “Two months,” he swept the case away; + Yet he lectured my man ere he went, but not for the riot indeed + For which he was sent to prison, but for holding a dangerous creed. + “What have you got to do to preach such perilous stuff? + To take some care of yourself should find you work enough. + If you needs must preach or lecture, then hire a chapel or hall; + Though indeed if you take my advice you’ll just preach nothing at all, + But stick to your work: you seem clever; who knows but you might rise, + And become a little builder should you condescend to be wise? + For in spite of your silly sedition, the land that we live in is free, + And opens a pathway to merit for you as well as for me.” + + Ah, friend, am I grown light-headed with the lonely grief of the + night, + That I babble of this babble? Woe’s me, how little and light + Is this beginning of trouble to all that yet shall be borne— + At worst but as the shower that lays but a yard of the corn + Before the hailstorm cometh and flattens the field to the earth. + + O for a word from my love of the hope of the second birth! + Could he clear my vision to see the sword creeping out of the sheath + Inch by inch as we writhe in the toils of our living death! + Could he but strengthen my heart to know that we cannot fail; + For alas, I am lonely here—helpless and feeble and frail; + I am e’en as the poor of the earth, e’en they that are now alive; + And where is their might and their cunning with the mighty of men to + strive? + Though they that come after be strong to win the day and the crown, + Ah, ever must we the deedless to the deedless dark go down, + Still crying, “To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow yet shall be + The new-born sun’s arising o’er happy earth and sea”— + And we not there to greet it—for to-day and its life we yearn, + And where is the end of toiling and whitherward now shall we turn + But to patience, ever patience, and yet and yet to bear; + And yet, forlorn, unanswered as oft before to hear, + Through the tales of the ancient fathers and the dreams that mock our + wrong, + That cry to the naked heavens, “How long, O Lord! how long?” + + + +VIII +THE HALF OF LIFE GONE + + + THE days have slain the days, and the seasons have gone by + And brought me the summer again; and here on the grass I lie + As erst I lay and was glad ere I meddled with right and with wrong. + Wide lies the mead as of old, and the river is creeping along + By the side of the elm-clad bank that turns its weedy stream, + And grey o’er its hither lip the quivering rushes gleam. + There is work in the mead as of old; they are eager at winning the + hay, + While every sun sets bright and begets a fairer day. + The forks shine white in the sun round the yellow red-wheeled wain, + Where the mountain of hay grows fast; and now from out of the lane + Comes the ox-team drawing another, comes the bailiff and the beer, + And thump, thump, goes the farmer’s nag o’er the narrow bridge of the + weir. + High up and light are the clouds, and though the swallows flit + So high o’er the sunlit earth, they are well a part of it, + And so, though high over them, are the wings of the wandering herne; + In measureless depths above him doth the fair sky quiver and burn; + The dear sun floods the land as the morning falls toward noon, + And a little wind is awake in the best of the latter June. + + They are busy winning the hay, and the life and the picture they make, + If I were as once I was, I should deem it made for my sake; + For here if one need not work is a place for happy rest, + While one’s thought wends over the world, north, south, and east and + west. + There are the men and the maids, and the wives and the gaffers grey + Of the fields I know so well, and but little changed are they + Since I was a lad amongst them; and yet how great is the change! + Strange are they grown unto me; yea, I to myself am strange. + Their talk and their laughter mingling with the music of the meads + Has now no meaning to me to help or to hinder my needs, + So far from them have I drifted. And yet amidst them goes + A part of myself, my boy, and of pleasure and pain he knows, + And deems it something strange when he is other than glad. + Lo now! the woman that stoops and kisses the face of the lad, + And puts a rake in his hand and laughs in his laughing face— + Whose is the voice that laughs in the old familiar place? + Whose should it be but my love’s, if my love were yet on the earth? + Could she refrain from the fields where my joy and her joy had birth, + When I was there and her child, on the grass that knew her feet + Mid the flowers that led her on when the summer eve was sweet? + + No, no, it is she no longer; never again can she come + And behold the hay-wains creeping o’er the meadows of her home; + No more can she kiss her son or put the rake in his hand + That she handled a while agone in the midst of the haymaking band. + Her laughter is gone and her life; there is no such thing on the + earth, + No share for me then in the stir, no share in the hurry and mirth. + + Nay, let me look and believe that all these will vanish away, + At least when the night has fallen, and that she will be there mid the + hay, + Happy and weary with work, waiting and longing for love. + There will she be, as of old, when the great moon hung above, + And lightless and dead was the village, and nought but the weir was + awake; + There will she rise to meet me, and my hands will she hasten to take, + And thence shall we wander away, and over the ancient bridge + By many a rose-hung hedgerow, till we reach the sun-burnt ridge + And the great trench digged by the Romans: there then awhile shall we + stand, + To watch the dawn come creeping o’er the fragrant lovely land, + Till all the world awaketh, and draws us down, we twain, + To the deeds of the field and the fold and the merry summer’s gain. + + Ah thus, only thus shall I see her, in dreams of the day or the night, + When my soul is beguiled of its sorrow to remember past delight. + She is gone. She was and she is not; there is no such thing on the + earth + But e’en as a picture painted; and for me there is void and dearth + That I cannot name or measure. + Yet for me and all these she died, + E’en as she lived for awhile, that the better day might betide. + Therefore I live, and I shall live till the last day’s work shall + fail. + Have patience now but a little and I will tell you the tale + Of how and why she died, and why I am weak and worn, + And have wandered away to the meadows and the place where I was born: + But here and to-day I cannot; for ever my thought will stray + To that hope fulfilled for a little and the bliss of the earlier day. + Of the great world’s hope and anguish to-day I scarce can think: + Like a ghost from the lives of the living and their earthly deeds I + shrink. + I will go adown by the water and over the ancient bridge, + And wend in our footsteps of old till I come to the sun-burnt ridge, + And the great trench digged by the Romans; and thence awhile will I + gaze, + And see three teeming counties stretch out till they fade in the haze; + And in all the dwellings of man that thence mine eyes shall see, + What man as hapless as I am beneath the sun shall be? + + O fool, what words are these? Thou hast a sorrow to nurse, + And thou hast been bold and happy; but these, if they utter a curse, + No sting it has and no meaning—it is empty sound on the air. + Thy life is full of mourning, and theirs so empty and bare + That they have no words of complaining; nor so happy have they been + That they may measure sorrow or tell what grief may mean. + And thou, thou hast deeds to do, and toil to meet thee soon; + Depart and ponder on these through the sun-worn afternoon. + + + +IX +A NEW FRIEND + + + I HAVE promised to tell you the story of how I was left alone + Sick and wounded and sore, and why the woman is gone + That I deemed a part of my life. Tell me when all is told, + If you deem it fit that the earth, that the world of men should hold + My work and my weariness still; yet think of that other life, + The child of me and of her, and the years and the coming strife. + + After I came out of prison our living was hard to earn + By the work of my hands, and of hers; to shifts we had to turn, + Such as the poor know well, and the rich cannot understand, + And just out of the gutter we stood, still loving and hand in hand. + + Do you ask me if still amidst all I held the hunt in view, + And the hope of the morning of life, all the things I should do and + undo? + Be easy, I am not a coward: nay little prudence I learned, + I spoke and I suffered for speaking, and my meat by my manhood was + burned. + When the poor man thinks—and rebels, the whip lies ready anear; + But he who is rebel and rich may live safe for many a year, + While he warms his heart with pictures of all the glory to come. + There’s the storm of the press and the critics maybe, but sweet is his + home, + There is meat in the morn and the even, and rest when the day is done, + All is fair and orderly there as the rising and setting sun— + And I know both the rich and the poor. + Well, I grew bitter they said; + ’Tis not unlike that I did, for bitter indeed was my bread, + And surely the nursling plant shall smack of its nourishing soil. + And here was our life in short, pinching and worry and toil, + One petty fear thrust out by another come in its place, + Each scrap of life but a fear, and the sum of it wretched and base. + E’en so fare millions of men, where men for money are made, + Where the poor are dumb and deedless, where the rich are not afraid. + Ah, am I bitter again? Well, these are our breeding-stock, + The very base of order, and the state’s foundation rock; + Is it so good and so safe that their manhood should be outworn + By the struggle for anxious life, the dull pain dismally borne, + Till all that was man within them is dead and vanished away? + Were it not even better that all these should think on a day + As they look on each other’s sad faces, and see how many they are: + “What are these tales of old time of men who were mighty in war? + They fought for some city’s dominion, for the name of a forest or + field; + They fell that no alien’s token should be blazoned on their shield; + And for this is their valour praised and dear is their renown, + And their names are beloved for ever and they wear the patriot’s + crown; + And shall we then wait in the streets and this heap of misery, + Till their stones rise up to help us or the far heavens set us free? + For we, we shall fight for no name, no blazon on banner or shield; + But that man to man may hearken and the earth her increase yield; + That never again in the world may be sights like we have seen; + That never again in the world may be men like we have been, + That never again like ours may be manhood spoilt and blurred.” + + Yea even so was I bitter, and this was my evilest word: + “Spend and be spent for our hope, and you at least shall be free, + Though you be rugged and coarse, as wasted and worn as you be.” + Well, “bitter” I was, and denounced, and scarcely at last might we + stand + From out of the very gutter, as we wended hand in hand. + I had written before for the papers, but so “bitter” was I grown, + That none of them now would have me that could pay me half-a-crown, + And the worst seemed closing around us; when as it needs must chance, + I spoke at some Radical Club of the Great Revolution in France. + Indeed I said nothing new to those who had learned it all, + And yet as something strange on some of the folk did it fall. + It was late in the terrible war, and France to the end drew nigh, + And some of us stood agape to see how the war would die, + And what would spring from its ashes. So when the talk was o’er + And after the stir and excitement I felt the burden I bore + Heavier yet for it all, there came to speak to me + A serious well-dressed man, a “gentleman,” young I could see; + And we fell to talk together, and he shyly gave me praise, + And asked, though scarcely in words, of my past and my “better days.” + Well, there,—I let it all out, and I flushed as I strode along, + (For we were walking by now) and bitterly spoke of the wrong. + Maybe I taught him something, but ready he was to learn, + And had come to our workmen meetings some knowledge of men to learn. + He kindled afresh at my words, although to try him I spake + More roughly than I was wont; but every word did he take + For what it was really worth, nor even laughter he spared, + As though he would look on life of its rags of habit bared. + + Well, why should I be ashamed that he helped me at my need? + My wife and my child, must I kill them? And the man was a friend + indeed, + And the work that he got me I did (it was writing, you understand) + As well as another might do it. To be short, he joined our band + Before many days were over, and we saw him everywhere + That we workmen met together, though I brought him not to my lair. + Eager he grew for the Cause, and we twain grew friend and friend: + He was dainty of mind and of body; most brave, as he showed in the + end; + Merry despite of his sadness, quick-witted and speedy to see: + Like a perfect knight of old time as the poets would have them to be. + That was the friend that I won by my bitter speech at last. + He loved me; he grieved my soul: now the love and the grief are past; + He is gone with his eager learning, his sadness and his mirth, + His hope and his fond desire. There is no such thing on the earth. + He died not unbefriended—nor unbeloved maybe. + Betwixt my life and his longing there rolls a boundless sea. + And what are those memories now to all that I have to do, + The deeds to be done so many, the days of my life so few? + + + +X +READY TO DEPART + + + I SAID of my friend new-found that at first he saw not my lair; + Yet he and I and my wife were together here and there; + And at last as my work increased and my den to a dwelling grew, + He came there often enough, and yet more together we drew. + Then came a change in the man; for a month he kept away, + Then came again and was with us for a fortnight every day, + But often he sat there silent, which was little his wont with us. + And at first I had no inkling of what constrained him thus; + I might have thought that he faltered, but now and again there came, + When we spoke of the Cause and its doings, a flash of his eager flame, + And he seemed himself for a while; then the brightness would fade + away, + And he gloomed and shrank from my eyes. + Thus passed day after day, + And grieved I grew, and I pondered: till at last one eve we sat + In the fire-lit room together, and talked of this and that, + But chiefly indeed of the war and what would come of it; + For Paris drew near to its fall, and wild hopes ’gan to flit + Amidst us Communist folk; and we talked of what might be done + When the Germans had gone their ways and the two were left alone, + Betrayers and betrayed in war-worn wasted France. + + As I spoke the word “betrayed,” my eyes met his in a glance, + And swiftly he turned away; then back with a steady gaze + He turned on me; and it seemed as when a sword-point plays + Round the sword in a battle’s beginning and the coming on of strife. + For I knew though he looked on me, he saw not me, but my wife: + And he reddened up to the brow, and the tumult of the blood + Nigh blinded my eyes for a while, that I scarce saw bad or good, + Till I knew that he was arisen and had gone without a word. + Then I turned about unto her, and a quivering voice I heard + Like music without a meaning, and twice I heard my name. + “O Richard, Richard!” she said, and her arms about me came, + And her tears and the lips that I loved were on my face once more. + A while I clung to her body, and longing sweet and sore + Beguiled my heart of its sorrow; then we sundered and sore she wept, + While fair pictures of days departed about my sad heart crept, + And mazed I felt and weary. But we sat apart again, + Not speaking, while between us was the sharp and bitter pain + As the sword ’twixt the lovers bewildered in the fruitless marriage + bed. + Yet a while, and we spoke together, and I scarce knew what I said, + But it was not wrath or reproaching, or the chill of love-born hate; + For belike around and about us, we felt the brooding fate. + We were gentle and kind together, and if any had seen us so, + They had said, “These two are one in the face of all trouble and woe.” + But indeed as a wedded couple we shrank from the eyes of men, + As we dwelt together and pondered on the days that come not again. + + Days passed and we dwelt together; nor Arthur came for awhile; + Gravely it was and sadly, and with no greeting smile, + That we twain met at our meetings: but no growth of hate was yet, + Though my heart at first would be sinking as our thoughts and our eyes + they met: + And when he spake amidst us and as one we two agreed, + And I knew of his faith and his wisdom, then sore was my heart indeed. + We shrank from meeting alone: for the words we had to say + Our thoughts would nowise fashion—not yet for many a day. + + Unhappy days of all days! Yet O might they come again! + So sore as my longing returneth to their trouble and sorrow and pain! + + But time passed, and once we were sitting, my wife and I in our room, + And it was in the London twilight and the February gloom, + When there came a knock, and he entered all pale, though bright were + his eyes, + And I knew that something had happened, and my heart to my mouth did + arise. + “It is over,” he said “—and beginning; for Paris has fallen at last, + And who knows what next shall happen after all that has happened and + passed? + There now may we all be wanted.” + I took up the word: “Well then + Let us go, we three together, and there to die like men.” + + “Nay,” he said, “to live and be happy like men.” Then he flushed up + red, + And she no less as she hearkened, as one thought through their bodies + had sped. + Then I reached out my hand unto him, and I kissed her once on the + brow, + But no word craving forgiveness, and no word of pardon e’en now, + Our minds for our mouths might fashion. + In the February gloom + And into the dark we sat planning, and there was I in the room, + And in speech I gave and I took; but yet alone and apart + In the fields where I once was a youngling whiles wandered the + thoughts of my heart, + And whiles in the unseen Paris, and the streets made ready for war. + Night grew and we lit the candles, and we drew together more, + And whiles we differed a little as we settled what to do, + And my soul was cleared of confusion as nigher the deed-time drew. + + Well, I took my child into the country, as we had settled there, + And gave him o’er to be cherished by a kindly woman’s care, + A friend of my mother’s, but younger: and for Arthur, I let him give + His money, as mine was but little, that the boy might flourish and + live, + Lest we three, or I and Arthur, should perish in tumult and war, + And at least the face of his father he should look on never more. + You cry out shame on my honour? But yet remember again + That a man in my boy was growing; must my passing pride and pain + Undo the manhood within him and his days and their doings blight? + So I thrust my pride away, and I did what I deemed was right, + And left him down in our country. + And well may you think indeed + How my sad heart swelled at departing from the peace of river and + mead, + But I held all sternly aback and again to the town did I pass. + And as alone I journeyed, this was ever in my heart: + “They may die; they may live and be happy; but for me I know my part, + In Paris to do my utmost, and there in Paris to die!” + And I said, “The day of the deeds and the day of deliverance is nigh.” + + + +XI +A GLIMPSE OF THE COMING DAY + + + IT was strange indeed, that journey! Never yet had I crossed the sea + Or looked on another people than the folk that had fostered me, + And my heart rose up and fluttered as in the misty night + We came on the fleet of the fishers slow rolling in the light + Of the hidden moon, as the sea dim under the false dawn lay; + And so like shadows of ships through the night they faded away, + And Calais pier was upon us. Dreamlike it was indeed + As we sat in the train together, and toward the end made speed. + But a dull sleep came upon me, and through the sleep a dream + Of the Frenchman who once was my master by the side of the willowy + stream; + And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, + And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, + While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped + perch. + Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, + I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, + And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar + plain, + By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped + and bent, + And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things fair and innocent. + And there sat my wife before me, and she, too, dreamed as she slept; + For the slow tears fell from her eyelids as in her sleep she wept. + But Arthur sat by my side and waked; and flushed was his face, + And his eyes were quick to behold the picture of each fair place + That we flashed by as on we hurried; and I knew that the joy of life + Was strongly stirred within him by the thought of the coming strife. + Then I too thought for a little, It is good in grief’s despite, + It is good to see earth’s pictures, and so live in the day and the + light. + Yea, we deemed that to death we were hastening, and it made our vision + clear, + And we knew the delight of our life-days, and held their sorrow dear. + + But now when we came unto Paris and were out in the sun and the + street, + It was strange to see the faces that our wondering eyes did meet; + Such joy and peace and pleasure! That folk were glad we knew, + But knew not the why and the wherefore; and we who had just come + through + The vanquished land and down-cast, and there at St. Denis e’en now + Had seen the German soldiers, and heard their bugles blow, + And the drum and fife go rattling through the freshness of the morn— + Yet here we beheld all joyous the folk they had made forlorn! + So at last from a grey stone building we saw a great flag fly, + One colour, red and solemn ’gainst the blue of the spring-tide sky, + And we stopped and turned to each other, and as each at each did we + gaze, + The city’s hope enwrapped us with joy and great amaze. + + As folk in a dream we washed and we ate, and in all detail, + Oft told and in many a fashion, did we have all yesterday’s tale: + How while we were threading our tangle of trouble in London there, + And I for my part, let me say it, within but a step of despair, + In Paris the day of days had betid; for the vile dwarf’s stroke, + To madden Paris and crush her, had been struck and the dull sword + broke; + There was now no foe and no fool in the city, and Paris was free; + And e’en as she is this morning, to-morrow all France will be. + We heard, and our hearts were saying, “In a little while all the + earth—” + And that day at last of all days I knew what life was worth; + For I saw what few have beheld, a folk with all hearts gay. + Then at last I knew indeed that our word of the coming day, + That so oft in grief and in sorrow I had preached, and scarcely knew + If it was but despair of the present or the hope of the day that was + due— + I say that I saw it now, real, solid and at hand. + + And strange how my heart went back to our little nook of the land, + And how plain and clear I saw it, as though I longed indeed + To give it a share of the joy and the satisfaction of need + That here in the folk I beheld. For this in our country spring + Did the starlings bechatter the gables, and the thrush in the + thorn-bush sing, + And the green cloud spread o’er the willows, and the little children + rejoice + And shout midst a nameless longing to the morning’s mingled voice; + For this was the promise of spring-tide, and the new leaves longing to + burst, + And the white roads threading the acres, and the sun-warmed meadows + athirst. + Once all was the work of sorrow and the life without reward, + And the toil that fear hath bidden, and the folly of master and lord; + But now are all things changing, and hope without a fear + Shall speed us on through the story of the changes of the year. + Now spring shall pluck the garland that summer weaves for all, + And autumn spread the banquet and winter fill the hall. + O earth, thou kind bestower, thou ancient fruitful place, + How lovely and beloved now gleams thy happy face! + + And O mother, mother, I said, hadst thou known as I lay in thy lap, + And for me thou hopedst and fearedst, on what days my life should hap, + Hadst thou known of the death that I look for, and the deeds wherein I + should deal, + How calm had been thy gladness! How sweet hadst thou smiled on my + weal! + As some woman of old hadst thou wondered, who hath brought forth a god + of the earth, + And in joy that knoweth no speech she dreams of the happy birth. + + Yea, fair were those hours indeed, whatever hereafter might come, + And they swept over all my sorrow, and all thought of my wildered + home. + But not for dreams of rejoicing had we come across the sea: + That day we delivered the letters that our friends had given to me, + And we craved for some work for the cause. And what work was there + indeed, + But to learn the business of battle and the manner of dying at need? + We three could think of none other, and we wrought our best therein; + And both of us made a shift the sergeant’s stripes to win, + For diligent were we indeed: and he, as in all he did, + Showed a cheerful ready talent that nowise might be hid, + And yet hurt the pride of no man that he needs must step before. + But as for my wife, the _brancard_ of the ambulance-women she wore, + And gently and bravely would serve us; and to all as a sister to be— + A sister amidst of the strangers—and, alas! a sister to me. + + + +XII +MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE + + + SO we dwelt in the war-girdled city as a very part of its life. + Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife, + I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the first, + The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst. + But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our own; + And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages had + sown, + Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the + dead; + Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that her + lovers have shed, + With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day, + With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn away, + With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the jostle of + war, + With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar. + + O Earth, Earth, look on thy lovers, who knew all thy gifts and thy + gain, + But cast them aside for thy sake, and caught up barren pain! + Indeed of some art thou mindful, and ne’er shalt forget their tale, + Till shrunk are the floods of thine ocean and thy sun is waxen pale. + But rather I bid thee remember e’en these of the latter days, + Who were fed by no fair promise and made drunken by no praise. + For them no opening heaven reached out the martyr’s crown; + No folk delivered wept them, and no harvest of renown + They reaped with the scythe of battle; nor round their dying bed + Did kindly friendly farewell the dew of blessing shed; + In the sordid streets of the city mid a folk that knew them not, + In the living death of the prison didst thou deal them out their lot, + Yet foundest them deeds to be doing; and no feeble folk were they + To scowl on their own undoing and wail their lives away; + But oft were they blithe and merry and deft from the strife to wring + Some joy that others gained not midst their peaceful wayfaring. + So fared they, giftless ever, and no help of fortune sought. + Their life was thy deliverance, O Earth, and for thee they fought; + Mid the jeers of the happy and deedless, mid failing friends they went + To their foredoomed fruitful ending on the love of thee intent. + + Yea and we were a part of it all, the beginning of the end, + That first fight of the uttermost battle whither all the nations wend; + And yet could I tell you its story, you might think it little and + mean. + For few of you now will be thinking of the day that might have been, + And fewer still meseemeth of the day that yet shall be, + That shall light up that first beginning and its tangled misery. + For indeed a very machine is the war that now men wage; + Nor have we hold of its handle, we gulled of our heritage, + We workmen slaves of machines. Well, it ground us small enough + This machine of the beaten Bourgeois; though oft the work was rough + That it turned out for its money. Like other young soldiers at first + I scarcely knew the wherefore why our side had had the worst; + For man to man and in knots we faced the matter well; + And I thought, well to-morrow or next day a new tale will be to tell. + I was fierce and not afraid; yet O were the wood-sides fair, + And the crofts and the sunny gardens, though death they harboured + there! + And few but fools are fain of leaving the world outright, + And the story over and done, and an end of the life and the light. + No hatred of life, thou knowest, O Earth, mid the bullets I bore, + Though pain and grief oppressed me that I never may suffer more. + But in those days past over did life and death seem one; + Yea the life had we attained to which could never be undone. + + You would have me tell of the fighting? Well, you know it was new to + me, + Yet it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and ever would be. + The morn when we made that sally, some thought (and yet not I) + That a few days and all would be over: just a few had got to die, + And the rest would be happy thenceforward. But my stubborn country + blood + Was bidding me hold my halloo till we were out of the wood. + And that was the reason perhaps why little disheartened I was, + As we stood all huddled together that night in a helpless mass, + As beaten men are wont: and I knew enough of war + To know midst its unskilled labour what slips full often are. + + There was Arthur unhurt beside me, and my wife come back again, + And surely that eve between us there was love though no lack of pain + As we talked all the matter over, and our hearts spake more than our + lips; + And we said, “We shall learn, we shall learn—yea, e’en from disasters + and slips.” + + Well, many a thing we learned, but we learned not how to prevail + O’er the brutal war-machine, the ruthless grinder of bale; + By the bourgeois world it was made, for the bourgeois world; and we, + We were e’en as the village weaver ’gainst the power-loom, maybe. + It drew on nearer and nearer, and we ’gan to look to the end— + We three, at least—and our lives began with death to blend; + Though we were long a-dying—though I dwell on yet as a ghost + In the land where we once were happy, to look on the loved and the + lost. + + + +XIII +THE STORY’S ENDING + + + HOW can I tell you the story of the Hope and its defence? + We wrought in a narrow circle; it was hither and thither and thence; + To the walls, and back for a little; to the fort and there to abide, + Grey-beards and boys and women; they lived there—and they died; + Nor counted much in the story. I have heard it told since then, + And mere lies our deeds have turned to in the mouths of happy men, + And e’en those will be soon forgotten as the world wends on its way, + Too busy for truth or kindness. Yet my soul is seeing the day + When those who are now but children the new generation shall be, + And e’en in our land of commerce and the workshop over the sea, + Amid them shall spring up the story; yea the very breath of the air + To the yearning hearts of the workers true tale of it all shall bear. + Year after year shall men meet with the red flag over head, + And shall call on the help of the vanquished and the kindness of the + dead. + And time that weareth most things, and the years that overgrow + The tale of the fools triumphant, yet clearer and clearer shall show + The deeds of the helpers of menfolk to every age and clime, + The deeds of the cursed and the conquered that were wise before their + time. + + Of these were my wife and my friend; there they ended their wayfaring + Like the generations before them thick thronging as leaves of the + spring, + Fast falling as leaves of the autumn as the ancient singer hath said, + And each one with a love and a story. Ah the grief of the early dead! + “What is all this talk?” you are saying; “why all this long delay?” + Yes, indeed, it is hard in the telling. Of things too grievous to say + I would be, but cannot be, silent. Well, I hurry on to the end— + For it drew to the latter ending of the hope that we helped to defend. + The forts were gone and the foemen drew near to the thin-manned wall, + And it wanted not many hours to the last hour and the fall, + And we lived amid the bullets and seldom went away + To what as yet were the streets by night-tide or by day. + We three, we fought together, and I did the best I could, + Too busy to think of the ending; but Arthur was better than good; + Resourceful, keen and eager, from post to post he ran, + To thrust out aught that was moving and bring up the uttermost man, + He was gone on some such errand, and was absent a little space, + When I turned about for a moment and saw my wife’s fair face, + And her foot set firm on the rampart, as she hastened here and there, + To some of our wounded comrades such help as she could to bear. + Then straight she looked upon me with such lovely, friendly eyes + Of the days gone by and remembered, that up from my heart ’gan rise + The choking sobbing passion; but I kept it aback, and smiled, + And waved my hand aloft—But therewith her face turned wild + In a moment of time, and she stared along the length of the wall, + And I saw a man who was running and crouching, stagger and fall, + And knew it for Arthur at once; but voiceless toward him she ran, + I with her, crying aloud. But or ever we reached the man, + Lo! a roar and a crash around us and my sick brain whirling around, + And a white light turning to black, and no sky and no air and no + ground, + And then what I needs must tell of as a great blank; but indeed + No words to tell of its horror hath language for my need: + As a map is to a picture, so is all that my words can say. + + But when I came to myself, in a friend’s house sick I lay + Amid strange blended noises, and my own mind wandering there; + Delirium in me indeed and around me everywhere. + That passed, and all things grew calmer, I with them: all the stress + That the last three months had been on me now sank to helplessness. + I bettered, and then they told me the tale of what had betid; + And first, that under the name of a friend of theirs I was hid, + Who was slain by mere misadventure, and was English as was I, + And no rebel, and had due papers wherewith I might well slip by + When I was somewhat better. Then I knew, though they had not told, + How all was fallen together, and my heart grew sick and cold. + And yet indeed thenceforward I strove my life to live, + That e’en as I was and so hapless I yet might live to strive. + It was but few words they told me of that murder great and grim, + And how with the blood of the guiltless the city’s streets did swim, + And of other horrors they told not, except in a word or two, + When they told of their scheme to save me from the hands of the + villainous crew, + Whereby I guessed what was happening in the main without detail. + And so at last it came to their telling the other tale + Of my wife and my friend; though that also methought I knew too well. + Well, they said that I had been wounded by the fragment of a shell, + Another of which had slain her outright, as forth she ran + Toward Arthur struck by a bullet. She never touched the man + Alive and she also alive; but thereafter as they lay + Both dead on one litter together, then folk who knew not us, + But were moved by seeing the twain so fair and so piteous, + Took them for husband and wife who were fated there to die, + Or, it may be lover and lover indeed—but what know I? + + Well, you know that I ’scaped from Paris, and crossed the narrow sea, + And made my way to the country where we twain were wont to be, + And that is the last and the latest of the tale I have to tell. + I came not here to be bidding my happiness farewell, + And to nurse my grief and to win me the gain of a wounded life, + That because of the bygone sorrow may hide away from the strife. + I came to look to my son, and myself to get stout and strong, + That two men there might be hereafter to battle against the wrong; + And I cling to the love of the past and the love of the day to be, + And the present, it is but the building of the man to be strong in me. + + + + +CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS + + +THE DAY IS COMING + + + COME hither, lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, + Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well. + + And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the + sea, + And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be. + + There more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come + Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient home. + + For then—laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine— + All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine. + + Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his + hand, + Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand. + + Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear + For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear. + + I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad + Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had. + + For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed, + Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed. + + O strange new wonderful justice! But for whom shall we gather the + gain? + For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shall labour in + vain. + + Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours, and no more shall any man + crave + For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave. + + And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall gather gold + To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the sold? + + Nay, what save the lovely city, and the little house on the hill, + And the wastes and the woodland beauty, and the happy fields we till; + + And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty dead; + And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet’s teeming head; + + And the painter’s hand of wonder; and the marvellous fiddle-bow, + And the banded choirs of music: all those that do and know. + + For all these shall be ours and all men’s, nor shall any lack a share + Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when the world grows + fair. + + * * * * * + + Ah! such are the days that shall be! But what are the deeds of + to-day, + In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives away? + + Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are three words to + speak: + WE WILL IT, and what is the foeman but the dream-strong wakened and + weak? + + O why and for what are we waiting? While our brothers droop and die, + And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by. + + How long shall they reproach us where crowd on crowd they dwell, + Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed hungry hell? + + Through squalid life they laboured, in sordid grief they died, + Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England’s pride. + + They are gone; there is none can undo it, nor save our souls from the + curse; + But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse? + + It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door + For the rich man’s hurrying terror, and the slow-foot hope of the + poor. + + Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their unlearned + discontent, + We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be spent. + + * * * * * + + Come, then, since all things call us, the living and the dead, + And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed. + + Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by ease and rest, + For the CAUSE alone is worthy till the good days bring the best. + + Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail, + Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail. + + Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we know: + That the Dawn and the Day is coming, and forth the Banners go. + + + +THE VOICE OF TOIL + + + I HEARD men saying, Leave hope and praying, + All days shall be as all have been; + To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow, + The never-ending toil between. + + When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger, + In hope we strove, and our hands were strong; + Then great men led us, with words they fed us, + And bade us right the earthly wrong. + + Go read in story their deeds and glory, + Their names amidst the nameless dead; + Turn then from lying to us slow-dying + In that good world to which they led; + + Where fast and faster our iron master, + The thing we made, for ever drives, + Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure + For other hopes and other lives. + + Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel, + Forgetting that the world is fair; + Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish; + Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare. + + Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us + As we lie in the hell our hands have won? + For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers, + The great are fallen, the wise men gone. + + * * * * * + + I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying, + The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep; + Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger, + When day breaks over dreams and sleep? + + Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older! + Help lies in nought but thee and me; + Hope is before us, the long years that bore us + Bore leaders more than men may be. + + Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry, + And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth, + While we the living our lives are giving + To bring the bright new world to birth. + + Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older + The Cause spreads over land and sea; + Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh + And joy at last for thee and me. + + + +NO MASTER + + + SAITH man to man, We’ve heard and known + That we no master need + To live upon this earth, our own, + In fair and manly deed. + The grief of slaves long passed away + For us hath forged the chain, + Till now each worker’s patient day + Builds up the House of Pain. + + And we, shall we too, crouch and quail, + Ashamed, afraid of strife, + And lest our lives untimely fail + Embrace the Death in Life? + Nay, cry aloud, and have no fear, + We few against the world; + Awake, arise! the hope we bear + Against the curse is hurled. + + It grows and grows—are we the same, + The feeble band, the few? + Or what are these with eyes aflame, + And hands to deal and do? + This is the host that bears the word, + NO MASTER HIGH OR LOW— + A lightning flame, a shearing sword, + A storm to overthrow. + + + +ALL FOR THE CAUSE + + + HEAR a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, + When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die! + + He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one hath gone before; + He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the life they bore. + + Nothing ancient is their story, e’en but yesterday they bled, + Youngest they of earth’s beloved, last of all the valiant dead. + + E’en the tidings we are telling was the tale they had to tell, + E’en the hope that our hearts cherish, was the hope for which they + fell. + + In the grave where tyrants thrust them, lies their labour and their + pain, + But undying from their sorrow springeth up the hope again. + + Mourn not therefore, nor lament it, that the world outlives their + life; + Voice and vision yet they give us, making strong our hands for strife. + + Some had name, and fame, and honour, learn’d they were, and wise and + strong; + Some were nameless, poor, unlettered, weak in all but grief and wrong. + + Named and nameless all live in us; one and all they lead us yet + Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget. + + Hearken how they cry, “O happy, happy ye that ye were born + In the sad slow night’s departing, in the rising of the morn. + + “Fair the crown the Cause hath for you, well to die or well to live + Through the battle, through the tangle, peace to gain or peace to + give.” + + Ah, it may be! Oft meseemeth, in the days that yet shall be, + When no slave of gold abideth ’twixt the breadth of sea to sea, + + Oft, when men and maids are merry, ere the sunlight leaves the earth, + And they bless the day beloved, all too short for all their mirth, + + Some shall pause awhile and ponder on the bitter days of old, + Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the curse of gold; + + Then ’twixt lips of loved and lover solemn thoughts of us shall rise; + We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the brave and wise. + + There amidst the world new-builded shall our earthly deeds abide, + Though our names be all forgotten, and the tale of how we died. + + Life or death then, who shall heed it, what we gain or what we lose? + Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each shall + choose. + + Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, + When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die! + + + +THE MARCH OF THE WORKERS + + + WHAT is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear, + Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near, + Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? + ’Tis the people marching on. + + Whither go they, and whence come they? What are these of whom ye + tell? + In what country are they dwelling ’twixt the gates of heaven and hell? + Are they mine or thine for money? Will they serve a master well? + Still the rumour’s marching on. + + Hark the rolling of the thunder! + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder + Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, + And the host comes marching on. + + Forth they come from grief and torment; on they wend toward health and + mirth, + All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the earth. + Buy them, sell them for thy service! Try the bargain what ’tis worth, + For the days are marching on. + + These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, win thy wheat, + Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into sweet, + All for thee this day—and ever. What reward for them is meet + Till the host comes marching on? + + Hark the rolling of the thunder! + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder + Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, + And the host comes marching on. + + Many a hundred years passed over have they laboured deaf and blind; + Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find. + Now at last they’ve heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the + wind, + And their feet are marching on. + + O ye rich men hear and tremble! for with words the sound is rife: + “Once for you and death we laboured; changed henceforward is the + strife. + We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men and life; + And our host is marching on.” + + Hark the rolling of the thunder! + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder + Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, + And the host comes marching on. + + “Is it war, then? Will ye perish as the dry wood in the fire? + Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire. + Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never tire; + And hope is marching on. + + “On we march then, we the workers, and the rumour that ye hear + Is the blended sound of battle and deliv’rance drawing near; + For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear, + And the world is marching on.” + + Hark the rolling of the thunder! + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder + Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, + And the host comes marching on. + + + +DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN + + + COME, comrades, come, your glasses clink; + Up with your hands a health to drink, + The health of all that workers be, + In every land, on every sea. + And he that will this health deny, + Down among the dead men, down among the dead men, + Down, down, down, down, + Down among the dead men let him lie! + + Well done! now drink another toast, + And pledge the gath’ring of the host, + The people armed in brain and hand, + To claim their rights in every land. + And he that will, etc. + + There’s liquor left; come, let’s be kind, + And drink the rich a better mind, + That when we knock upon the door, + They may be off and say no more. + And he that will, etc. + + Now, comrades, let the glass blush red, + Drink we the unforgotten dead + That did their deeds and went away, + Before the bright sun brought the day. + And he that will, etc. + + The Day? Ah, friends, late grows the night; + Drink to the glimmering spark of light, + The herald of the joy to be, + The battle-torch of thee and me! + And he that will, etc. + + Take yet another cup in hand + And drink in hope our little band; + Drink strife in hope while lasteth breath, + And brotherhood in life and death; + And he that will this health deny, + Down among the dead men, down among the dead men, + Down, down, down, down, + Down among the dead men let him lie! + + + +A DEATH SONG + + + WHAT cometh here from west to east awending? + And who are these, the marchers stern and slow? + We bear the message that the rich are sending + Aback to those who bade them wake and know. + _Not one_, _not one_, _nor thousands must they slay_, + _But one and all if they would dusk the day_. + + We asked them for a life of toilsome earning, + They bade us bide their leisure for our bread; + We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning: + We come back speechless, bearing back our dead. + _Not one_, _not one_, _nor thousands must they slay_, + _But one and all if they would dusk the day_. + + They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken. + They turn their faces from the eyes of fate; + Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken. + But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate. + _Not one_, _not one_, _nor thousands must they slay_, + _But one and all if they would dusk the day_. + + Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison; + Amidst the storm he won a prisoner’s rest; + But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen + Brings us our day of work to win the best. + _Not one_, _not one_, _nor thousands must they slay_, + _But one and all if they would dusk the day_. + + + +MAY DAY [1892] + + + THE WORKERS. + + O EARTH, once again cometh Spring to deliver + Thy winter-worn heart, O thou friend of the Sun; + Fair blossom the meadows from river to river + And the birds sing their triumph o’er winter undone. + + O Earth, how a-toiling thou singest thy labour + And upholdest the flower-crowned cup of thy bliss, + As when in the feast-tide drinks neighbour to neighbour + And all words are gleeful, and nought is amiss. + + But we, we, O Mother, through long generations, + We have toiled and been fruitful, but never with thee + Might we raise up our bowed heads and cry to the nations + To look on our beauty, and hearken our glee. + + Unlovely of aspect, heart-sick and a-weary + On the season’s fair pageant all dim-eyed we gaze; + Of thy fairness we fashion a prison-house dreary + And in sorrow wear over each day of our days. + + THE EARTH. + + O children! O toilers, what foemen beleaguer + The House I have built you, the Home I have won? + Full great are my gifts, and my hands are all eager + To fill every heart with the deeds I have done. + + THE WORKERS. + + The foemen are born of thy body, O Mother, + In our shape are they shapen, their voice is the same; + And the thought of their hearts is as ours and no other; + It is they of our own house that bring us to shame. + + THE EARTH. + + Are ye few? Are they many? What words have ye spoken + To bid your own brethren remember the Earth? + What deeds have ye done that the bonds should be broken, + And men dwell together in good-will and mirth? + + THE WORKERS. + + They are few, we are many: and yet, O our Mother, + Many years were we wordless and nought was our deed, + But now the word flitteth from brother to brother: + We have furrowed the acres and scattered the seed. + + THE EARTH. + + Win on then unyielding, through fair and foul weather, + And pass not a day that your deed shall avail. + And in hope every spring-tide come gather together + That unto the Earth ye may tell all your tale. + + Then this shall I promise, that I am abiding + The day of your triumph, the ending of gloom, + And no wealth that ye will then my hand shall be hiding + And the tears of the spring into roses shall bloom. + + + +MAY DAY, 1894 + + + CLAD is the year in all her best, + The land is sweet and sheen; + Now Spring with Summer at her breast, + Goes down the meadows green. + + Here are we met to welcome in + The young abounding year, + To praise what she would have us win + Ere winter draweth near. + + For surely all is not in vain, + This gallant show she brings; + But seal of hope and sign of gain, + Beareth this Spring of springs. + + No longer now the seasons wear + Dull, without any tale + Of how the chain the toilers bear + Is growing thin and frail. + + But hope of plenty and goodwill + Flies forth from land to land, + Nor any now the voice can still + That crieth on the hand. + + A little while shall Spring come back + And find the Ancient Home + Yet marred by foolish waste and lack, + And most enthralled by some. + + A little while, and then at last + Shall the greetings of the year + Be blent with wonder of the past + And all the griefs that were. + + A little while, and they that meet + The living year to praise, + Shall be to them as music sweet + That grief of bye-gone days. + + So be we merry to our best, + Now the land is sweet and sheen, + And Spring with Summer at her breast + Goes down the meadows green. + + * * * * * + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Pilgrims of Hope and Chants for Socialists + + +Author: William Morris + + + +Release Date: October 5, 2014 [eBook #3262] +[This file was first posted on March 2, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE AND CHANTS +FOR SOCIALISTS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1915 Longmans, Green and Company edition +by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND</span><br /> +CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS</h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +WILLIAM MORRIS</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY<br /> +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW +YORK</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS</span><br /> +1915</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">All rights +reserved</span></p> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>FORWARD</h2> +<p>“The Pilgrims of Hope” appeared in <i>The +Commonweal</i> between March 1885 and July 1886, its title being +decided on with the publication of the second part. +Sections I, IV, and VIII were included in <i>Poems by the Way</i> +after the author abandoned his intention of revising it as a +whole. “To be concluded” stands at the bottom +of the last instalment.</p> +<p>“Chants for Socialists,” consisting of songs and +poems written for various occasions and collected into a penny +pamphlet published by the Socialist League in 1885, is here +printed entire (with the exception of “The Message of the +March Wind,” pp. 3–6), although “The Day is +Coming,” “The Voice of Toil,” and “All +for the Cause,” were included in <i>Poems by the +Way</i>. “A Death Song,” which also appears +there, was written for the funeral of Alfred Linnell, who died +from injuries received at a Demonstration in Trafalgar Square on +November 20, 1887. It first appeared in pamphlet form, with +a musical setting by Malcolm Lawson.</p> +<p>“May Day” [1892] and “May Day, 1894,” +appeared in <i>Justice</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>PILGRIMS OF HOPE:</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Message of the March +Wind</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Bridge and the Street</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Sending to the War</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mother and Son</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">New Birth</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The New Proletarian</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">In Prison—and at Home</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Half of Life Gone</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A New Friend</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Ready to Depart</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Glimpse of the Coming Day</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Meeting The War-Machine</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Story’s Ending</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS:</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Day is Coming</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Voice of Toil</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">No Master</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span><span class="smcap">All for the Cause</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The March of the Workers</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Down Among the Dead Men</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page73">73</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Death Song</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">May Day</span> [1892]</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page77">77</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">May Day</span>, 1894</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>THE +PILGRIMS OF HOPE</h2> +<h3><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>I<br /> +THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Fair</span> now is the +springtide, now earth lies beholding<br /> + With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;<br /> +Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding<br /> + The green-growing acres with increase begun.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be +straying<br /> + Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the +field;<br /> +Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing<br /> + On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is +healed.</p> +<p class="poetry">From township to township, o’er down and +by tillage<br /> + Far, far have we wandered and long was the day,<br +/> +But now cometh eve at the end of the village,<br /> + Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.</p> +<p class="poetry">There is wind in the twilight; in the white +road before us<br /> + The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;<br /> +The moon’s rim is rising, a star glitters o’er us,<br +/> + And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in +doubt.</p> +<p class="poetry">Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge +crossing over<br /> + The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea.<br +/> +Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover;<br /> + This eve art thou given to gladness and me.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>Shall we be glad always? Come closer and +hearken:<br /> + Three fields further on, as they told me down +there,<br /> +When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken,<br +/> + We might see from the hill-top the great +city’s glare.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! From +London it bloweth,<br /> + And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest;<br /> +Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth,<br /> + But teacheth not aught of the worst and the +best.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the +story<br /> + How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and +wide;<br /> +And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory<br /> + Has been but a burden they scarce might abide.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hark! the March wind again of a people is +telling;<br /> + Of the life that they live there, so haggard and +grim,<br /> +That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling<br /> + My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim.</p> +<p class="poetry">This land we have loved in our love and our +leisure<br /> + For them hangs in heaven, high out of their +reach;<br /> +The wide hills o’er the sea-plain for them have no +pleasure,<br /> + The grey homes of their fathers no story to +teach.</p> +<p class="poetry">The singers have sung and the builders have +builded,<br /> + The painters have fashioned their tales of +delight;<br /> +For what and for whom hath the world’s book been gilded,<br +/> + When all is for these but the blackness of +night?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>How long and for what is their patience abiding?<br /> + How oft and how oft shall their story be told,<br /> +While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding<br /> + And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth +old?</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Come</span> back to the +inn, love, and the lights and the fire,<br /> + And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling +of feet;<br /> +For there in a while shall be rest and desire,<br /> + And there shall the morrow’s uprising be +sweet.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind +us<br /> + And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night,<br /> +How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us;<br /> + For the hope that none seeketh is coming to +light.</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, +unperished,<br /> + Like the autumn-sown wheat ’neath the snow +lying green,<br /> +Like the love that o’ertook us, unawares and +uncherished,<br /> + Like the babe ’neath thy girdle that groweth +unseen,</p> +<p class="poetry">So the hope of the people now buddeth and +groweth—<br /> + Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear;<br /> +It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth;<br /> + It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us +hear:</p> +<p class="poetry">For it beareth the message: “Rise up on +the morrow<br /> + And go on your ways toward the doubt and the +strife;<br /> +Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow,<br /> + And seek for men’s love in the short days of +life.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span>But lo, the old inn, and the lights and the fire,<br /> + And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling +of feet;<br /> +Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire,<br /> + And to-morrow’s uprising to deeds shall be +sweet.</p> +<h3><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>II<br /> +THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> the midst of the +bridge there we stopped and we wondered<br /> + In London at last, and the moon going down,<br /> +All sullied and red where the mast-wood was sundered<br /> + By the void of the night-mist, the breath of the +town.</p> +<p class="poetry">On each side lay the City, and Thames ran +between it<br /> + Dark, struggling, unheard ’neath the wheels +and the feet.<br /> +A strange dream it was that we ever had seen it,<br /> + And strange was the hope we had wandered to +meet.</p> +<p class="poetry">Was all nought but confusion? What man +and what master<br /> + Had each of these people that hastened along?<br /> +Like a flood flowed the faces, and faster and faster<br /> + Went the drift of the feet of the hurrying +throng.</p> +<p class="poetry">Till all these seemed but one thing, and we +twain another,<br /> + A thing frail and feeble and young and unknown;<br +/> +What sign mid all these to tell foeman from brother?<br /> + What sign of the hope in our hearts that had +grown?</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> went to our +lodging afar from the river,<br /> + And slept and forgot—and remembered in +dreams;<br /> +And friends that I knew not I strove to deliver<br /> + From a crowd that swept o’er us in measureless +streams,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>Wending whither I knew not: till meseemed I was waking<br +/> + To the first night in London, and lay by my love,<br +/> +And she worn and changed, and my very heart aching<br /> + With a terror of soul that forbade me to move.</p> +<p class="poetry">Till I woke, in good sooth, and she lay there +beside me,<br /> + Fresh, lovely in sleep; but awhile yet I lay,<br /> +For the fear of the dream-tide yet seemed to abide me<br /> + In the cold and sad time ere the dawn of the +day.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then I went to the window, and saw down below +me<br /> + The market-wains wending adown the dim street,<br /> +And the scent of the hay and the herbs seemed to know me,<br /> + And seek out my heart the dawn’s sorrow to +meet.</p> +<p class="poetry">They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless +faces<br /> + The dull houses stared on the prey they had +trapped;<br /> +’Twas as though they had slain all the fair morning +places<br /> + Where in love and in leisure our joyance had +happed.</p> +<p class="poetry">My heart sank; I murmured, “What’s +this we are doing<br /> + In this grim net of London, this prison built +stark<br /> +With the greed of the ages, our young lives pursuing<br /> + A phantom that leads but to death in the +dark?”</p> +<p class="poetry">Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it +striving,<br /> + And now here and there a few people went by.<br /> +As an image of what was once eager and living<br /> + Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to +die.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its +pleasure<br /> + Was light, and unworthy, had been and was gone;<br +/> +If hope had deceived us, if hid were its treasure,<br /> + Nought now would be left us of all life had won.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">love</span>, stand beside +me; the sun is uprisen<br /> + On the first day of London; and shame hath been +here.<br /> +For I saw our new life like the bars of a prison,<br /> + And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes +are chiding!<br /> + Yea, but life is no longer as stories of yore;<br /> +From us from henceforth no fair words shall be hiding<br /> + The nights of the wretched, the days of the +poor.</p> +<p class="poetry">Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we +have faltered,<br /> + For ourselves, for each other, while yet we were +twain;<br /> +And no whit of the world by our sorrow was altered,<br /> + Our faintness grieved nothing, our fear was in +vain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our +passion,<br /> + We shall feel all henceforth as we felt it +erewhile;<br /> +But now from all this the due deeds we shall fashion<br /> + Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without +guile.</p> +<p class="poetry">Let us grieve then—and help every soul in +our sorrow;<br /> + Let us fear—and press forward where few dare +to go;<br /> +Let us falter in hope—and plan deeds for the morrow,<br /> + The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the +foe.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping,<br +/> + And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart’s +embrace,<br /> +While all round about him the bullets are sweeping,<br /> + But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his +place;</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea, so let our lives be! e’en such that +hereafter,<br /> + When the battle is won and the story is told,<br /> +Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter,<br /> + And our names shall be those of the bright and the +bold.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—This section had the +following note in <i>The Commonweal</i>. It is the +intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who +in the “Message of the March Wind” were already +touched by sympathy with the cause of the people.</p> +<h3><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>III<br +/> +SENDING TO THE WAR</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It</span> was down in our +far-off village that we heard of the war begun,<br /> +But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire’s +thick-lipped son,<br /> +A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away,<br /> +And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to +say<br /> +Of the war and its why and wherefore—and we said it often +enough;<br /> +The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough.<br +/> +But I held my peace and wondered; for I thought of the folly of +men,<br /> +The fair lives ruined and broken that ne’er could be mended +again;<br /> +And the tale by lies bewildered, and no cause for a man to +choose;<br /> +Nothing to curse or to bless—just a game to win or to +lose.</p> +<p class="poetry">But here were the streets of +London—strife stalking wide in the world;<br /> +And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze +unfurled.<br /> +And who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops +displayed<br /> +The toys of rich men’s folly, by blinded labour made;<br /> +And still from naught to nothing the bright-skinned horses +drew<br /> +Dull men and sleek-faced women with never a deed to do;<br /> +While all about and around them the street-flood ebbed and +flowed,<br /> +Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed ’neath the +load.<br /> +Lo the sons of an ancient people! And for this they fought +and fell<br /> +In the days by fame made glorious, in the tale that singers +tell.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>We two we stood in the street in the midst of a mighty +crowd,<br /> +The sound of its mingled murmur in the heavens above was loud,<br +/> +And earth was foul with its squalor—that stream of every +day,<br /> +The hurrying feet of labour, the faces worn and grey,<br /> +Were a sore and grievous sight, and enough and to spare had I +seen<br /> +Of hard and pinching want midst our quiet fields and green;<br /> +But all was nothing to this, the London holiday throng.<br /> +Dull and with hang-dog gait they stood or shuffled along,<br /> +While the stench from the lairs they had lain in last night went +up in the wind,<br /> +And poisoned the sun-lit spring: no story men can find<br /> +Is fit for the tale of their lives; no word that man hath made<br +/> +Can tell the hue of their faces, or their rags by filth +o’er-laid:<br /> +For this hath our age invented—these are the sons of the +free,<br /> +Who shall bear our name triumphant o’er every land and +sea.<br /> +Read ye their souls in their faces, and what shall help you +there?<br /> +Joyless, hopeless, shameless, angerless, set is their stare:<br +/> +This is the thing we have made, and what shall help us now,<br /> +For the field hath been laboured and tilled and the teeth of the +dragon shall grow.</p> +<p class="poetry">But why are they gathered together? what is +this crowd in the street?<br /> +This is a holiday morning, though here and there we meet<br /> +The hurrying tradesman’s broadcloth, or the workman’s +basket of tools.<br /> +Men say that at last we are rending the snares of knaves and +fools;<br /> +That a cry from the heart of the nation against the foe is +hurled,<br /> +And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze +unfurled.<br /> +The soldiers are off to the war, we are here to see the sight,<br +/> +And all our griefs shall be hidden by the thought of our +country’s might.<br /> +’Tis the ordered anger of England and her hope for the good +of the Earth<br /> +That we to-day are speeding, and many a gift of worth<br /> +<a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>Shall +follow the brand and the bullet, and our wrath shall be no +curse,<br /> +But a blessing of life to the helpless—unless we are liars +and worse—<br /> +And these that we see are the senders; these are they that +speed<br /> +The dread and the blessing of England to help the world at its +need.</p> +<p class="poetry">Sick unto death was my hope, and I turned and +looked on my dear,<br /> +And beheld her frightened wonder, and her grief without a +tear,<br /> +And knew how her thought was mine—when, hark! o’er +the hubbub and noise,<br /> +Faint and a long way off, the music’s measured voice,<br /> +And the crowd was swaying and swaying, and somehow, I knew not +why,<br /> +A dream came into my heart of deliverance drawing anigh.<br /> +Then with roll and thunder of drums grew the music louder and +loud,<br /> +And the whole street tumbled and surged, and cleft was the +holiday crowd,<br /> +Till two walls of faces and rags lined either side of the way.<br +/> +Then clamour of shouts rose upward, as bright and glittering +gay<br /> +Came the voiceful brass of the band, and my heart beat fast and +fast,<br /> +For the river of steel came on, and the wrath of England +passed<br /> +Through the want and the woe of the town, and strange and wild +was my thought,<br /> +And my clenched hands wandered about as though a weapon they +sought.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hubbub and din was behind them, and the +shuffling haggard throng,<br /> +Wandering aimless about, tangled the street for long;<br /> +But the shouts and the rhythmic noise we still heard far away,<br +/> +And my dream was become a picture of the deeds of another day.<br +/> +Far and far was I borne, away o’er the years to come,<br /> +And again was the ordered march, and the thunder of the drum,<br +/> +And the bickering points of steel, and the horses shifting +about<br /> +’Neath the flashing swords of the captains—then the +silence after the shout—<br /> +<a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>Sun and +wind in the street, familiar things made clear,<br /> +Made strange by the breathless waiting for the deeds that are +drawing anear.<br /> +For woe had grown into will, and wrath was bared of its +sheath,<br /> +And stark in the streets of London stood the crop of the +dragon’s teeth.<br /> +Where then in my dream were the poor and the wall of faces +wan?<br /> +Here and here by my side, shoulder to shoulder of man,<br /> +Hope in the simple folk, hope in the hearts of the wise,<br /> +For the happy life to follow, or death and the ending of lies,<br +/> +Hope is awake in the faces angerless now no more,<br /> +Till the new peace dawn on the world, the fruit of the +people’s war.</p> +<p class="poetry">War in the world abroad a thousand leagues +away,<br /> +While custom’s wheel goes round and day devoureth day.<br +/> +Peace at home!—what peace, while the rich man’s mill +is strife,<br /> +And the poor is the grist that he grindeth, and life devoureth +life?</p> +<h3><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>IV<br +/> +MOTHER AND SON</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Now</span> sleeps the land +of houses, and dead night holds the street,<br /> +And there thou liest, my baby, and sleepest soft and sweet;<br /> +My man is away for awhile, but safe and alone we lie;<br /> +And none heareth thy breath but thy mother, and the moon looking +down from the sky<br /> +On the weary waste of the town, as it looked on the grass-edged +road<br /> +Still warm with yesterday’s sun, when I left my old +abode,<br /> +Hand in hand with my love, that night of all nights in the +year;<br /> +When the river of love o’erflowed and drowned all doubt and +fear,<br /> +And we two were alone in the world, and once, if never again,<br +/> +We knew of the secret of earth and the tale of its labour and +pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Lo amidst London I lift thee, and how little +and light thou art,<br /> +And thou without hope or fear, thou fear and hope of my heart!<br +/> +Lo here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life;<br +/> +But how will it be if thou livest, and enterest into the +strife,<br /> +And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee,<br +/> +When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet ’twixt thee +and me<br /> +Shall rise that wall of distance, that round each one doth +grow,<br /> +And maketh it hard and bitter each other’s thought to +know?<br /> +Now, therefore, while yet thou art little and hast no thought of +thine own,<br /> +I will tell thee a word of the world, of the hope whence thou +hast grown,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>Of the love that once begat thee, of the sorrow that +hath made<br /> +Thy little heart of hunger, and thy hands on my bosom laid.<br /> +Then mayst thou remember hereafter, as whiles when people say<br +/> +All this hath happened before in the life of another day;<br /> +So mayst thou dimly remember this tale of thy mother’s +voice,<br /> +As oft in the calm of dawning I have heard the birds rejoice,<br +/> +As oft I have heard the storm-wind go moaning through the +wood,<br /> +And I knew that earth was speaking, and the mother’s voice +was good.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, to thee alone will I tell it that thy +mother’s body is fair,<br /> +In the guise of the country maidens who play with the sun and the +air,<br /> +Who have stood in the row of the reapers in the August +afternoon,<br /> +Who have sat by the frozen water in the highday of the moon,<br +/> +When the lights of the Christmas feasting were dead in the house +on the hill,<br /> +And the wild geese gone to the salt marsh had left the winter +still.<br /> +Yea, I am fair, my firstling; if thou couldst but remember me!<br +/> +The hair that thy small hand clutcheth is a goodly sight to +see;<br /> +I am true, but my face is a snare; soft and deep are my eyes,<br +/> +And they seem for men’s beguiling fulfilled with the dreams +of the wise.<br /> +Kind are my lips, and they look as though my soul had learned<br +/> +Deep things I have never heard of. My face and my hands are +burned<br /> +By the lovely sun of the acres; three months of London-town<br /> +And thy birth-bed have bleached them indeed—“But lo, +where the edge of the gown”<br /> +(So said thy father one day) “parteth the wrist white as +curd<br /> +From the brown of the hands that I love, bright as the wing of a +bird.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Such is thy mother, O firstling, yet strong as +the maidens of old,<br /> +Whose spears and whose swords were the warders of homestead, of +field and of fold.<br /> +<a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Oft were +my feet on the highway, often they wearied the grass;<br /> +From dusk unto dusk of the summer three times in a week would I +pass<br /> +To the downs from the house on the river through the waves of the +blossoming corn.<br /> +Fair then I lay down in the even, and fresh I arose on the +morn,<br /> +And scarce in the noon was I weary. Ah, son, in the days of +thy strife,<br /> +If thy soul could harbour a dream of the blossom of my life!<br +/> +It would be as sunlit meadows beheld from a tossing sea,<br /> +And thy soul should look on a vision of the peace that is to +be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet, yet the tears on my cheek! And what +is this doth move<br /> +My heart to thy heart, beloved, save the flood of yearning +love?<br /> +For fair and fierce is thy father, and soft and strange are his +eyes<br /> +That look on the days that shall be with the hope of the brave +and the wise.<br /> +It was many a day that we laughed as over the meadows we +walked,<br /> +And many a day I hearkened and the pictures came as he talked;<br +/> +It was many a day that we longed, and we lingered late at eve<br +/> +Ere speech from speech was sundered, and my hand his hand could +leave.<br /> +Then I wept when I was alone, and I longed till the daylight +came;<br /> +And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping +dame<br /> +(No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes<br /> +Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the +limes;<br /> +All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues +leapt<br /> +Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from +it crept,<br /> +And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor,<br /> +And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open +door.<br /> +The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he +stood<br /> +Beyond the crimson daisies and the bush of southernwood.<br /> +Then side by side together through the grey-walled place we +went,<br /> +And O the fear departed, and the rest and sweet content!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span><span class="smcap">Son</span>, sorrow and wisdom he +taught me, and sore I grieved and learned<br /> +As we twain grew into one; and the heart within me burned<br /> +With the very hopes of his heart. Ah, son, it is +piteous,<br /> +But never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus;<br +/> +So may these lonely words about thee creep and cling,<br /> +These words of the lonely night in the days of our wayfaring.<br +/> +Many a child of woman to-night is born in the town,<br /> +The desert of folly and wrong; and of what and whence are they +grown?<br /> +Many and many an one of wont and use is born;<br /> +For a husband is taken to bed as a hat or a ribbon is worn.<br /> +Prudence begets her thousands: “Good is a +housekeeper’s life,<br /> +So shall I sell my body that I may be matron and wife.”<br +/> +“And I shall endure foul wedlock and bear the children of +need.”<br /> +Some are there born of hate—many the children of greed.<br +/> +“I, I too can be wedded, though thou my love hast +got.”<br /> +“I am fair and hard of heart, and riches shall be my +lot.”<br /> +And all these are the good and the happy, on whom the world dawns +fair.<br /> +O son, when wilt thou learn of those that are born of despair,<br +/> +As the fabled mud of the Nile that quickens under the sun<br /> +With a growth of creeping things, half dead when just begun?<br +/> +E’en such is the care of Nature that man should never +die,<br /> +Though she breed of the fools of the earth, and the dregs of the +city sty.<br /> +But thou, O son, O son, of very love wert born,<br /> +When our hope fulfilled bred hope, and fear was a folly +outworn;<br /> +On the eve of the toil and the battle all sorrow and grief we +weighed,<br /> +We hoped and we were not ashamed, we knew and we were not +afraid.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now waneth the night and the moon—ah, +son, it is piteous<br /> +That never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee +thus.<br /> +But sure from the wise and the simple shall the mighty come to +birth;<br /> +And fair were my fate, beloved, if I be yet on the earth<br /> +When the world is awaken at last, and from mouth to mouth they +tell<br /> +Of thy love and thy deeds and thy valour, and thy hope that +nought can quell.</p> +<h3><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>V<br +/> +NEW BIRTH</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It</span> was twenty-five +years ago that I lay in my mother’s lap<br /> +New born to life, nor knowing one whit of all that should hap:<br +/> +That day was I won from nothing to the world of struggle and +pain,<br /> +Twenty-five years ago—and to-night am I born again.</p> +<p class="poetry">I look and behold the days of the years that +are passed away,<br /> +And my soul is full of their wealth, for oft were they blithe and +gay<br /> +As the hours of bird and of beast: they have made me calm and +strong<br /> +To wade the stream of confusion, the river of grief and +wrong.</p> +<p class="poetry">A rich man was my father, but he skulked ere I +was born,<br /> +And gave my mother money, but left her life to scorn;<br /> +And we dwelt alone in our village: I knew not my mother’s +“shame,”<br /> +But her love and her wisdom I knew till death and the parting +came.<br /> +Then a lawyer paid me money, and I lived awhile at a school,<br +/> +And learned the lore of the ancients, and how the knave and the +fool<br /> +Have been mostly the masters of earth: yet the earth seemed fair +and good<br /> +With the wealth of field and homestead, and garden and river and +wood;<br /> +And I was glad amidst it, and little of evil I knew<br /> +As I did in sport and pastime such deeds as a youth might do,<br +/> +Who deems he shall live for ever. Till at last it befel on +a day<br /> +That I came across our Frenchman at the edge of the new-mown +hay,<br /> +A-fishing as he was wont, alone as he always was;<br /> +<a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>So I +helped the dark old man to bring a chub to grass,<br /> +And somehow he knew of my birth, and somehow we came to be +friends,<br /> +Till he got to telling me chapters of the tale that never +ends;<br /> +The battle of grief and hope with riches and folly and wrong.<br +/> +He told how the weak conspire, he told of the fear of the +strong;<br /> +He told of dreams grown deeds, deeds done ere time was ripe,<br +/> +Of hope that melted in air like the smoke of his evening pipe;<br +/> +Of the fight long after hope in the teeth of all despair;<br /> +Of battle and prison and death, of life stripped naked and +bare.<br /> +But to me it all seemed happy, for I gilded all with the gold<br +/> +Of youth that believes not in death, nor knoweth of hope grown +cold.<br /> +I hearkened and learned, and longed with a longing that had no +name,<br /> +Till I went my ways to our village and again departure came.</p> +<p class="poetry">Wide now the world was grown, and I saw things +clear and grim,<br /> +That awhile agone smiled on me from the dream-mist doubtful and +dim.<br /> +I knew that the poor were poor, and had no heart or hope;<br /> +And I knew that I was nothing with the least of evils to cope;<br +/> +So I thought the thoughts of a man, and I fell into bitter +mood,<br /> +Wherein, except as a picture, there was nought on the earth that +was good;<br /> +Till I met the woman I love, and she asked, as folk ask of the +wise,<br /> +Of the root and meaning of things that she saw in the world of +lies.<br /> +I told her all I knew, and the tale told lifted the load<br /> +That made me less than a man; and she set my feet on the +road.</p> +<p class="poetry">So we left our pleasure behind to seek for hope +and for life,<br /> +And to London we came, if perchance there smouldered the embers +of strife<br /> +Such as our Frenchman had told of; and I wrote to him to ask<br +/> +If he would be our master, and set the learners their task.<br /> +But “dead” was the word on the letter when it came +back to me,<br /> +And all that we saw henceforward with our own eyes must we +see.<br /> +<a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>So we +looked and wondered and sickened; not for ourselves indeed:<br /> +My father by now had died, but he left enough for my need;<br /> +And besides, away in our village the joiner’s craft had I +learned,<br /> +And I worked as other men work, and money and wisdom I earned.<br +/> +Yet little from day to day in street or workshop I met<br /> +To nourish the plant of hope that deep in my heart had been +set.<br /> +The life of the poor we learned, and to me there was nothing +new<br /> +In their day of little deeds that ever deathward drew.<br /> +But new was the horror of London that went on all the while<br /> +That rich men played at their ease for name and fame to +beguile<br /> +The days of their empty lives, and praised the deeds they did,<br +/> +As though they had fashioned the earth and found out the sun long +hid;<br /> +Though some of them busied themselves from hopeless day to day<br +/> +With the lives of the slaves of the rich and the hell wherein +they lay.<br /> +They wrought meseems as those who should make a bargain with +hell,<br /> +That it grow a little cooler, and thus for ever to dwell.</p> +<p class="poetry">So passed the world on its ways, and weary with +waiting we were.<br /> +Men ate and drank and married; no wild cry smote the air,<br /> +No great crowd ran together to greet the day of doom;<br /> +And ever more and more seemed the town like a monstrous tomb<br +/> +To us, the Pilgrims of Hope, until to-night it came,<br /> +And Hope on the stones of the street is written in letters of +flame.</p> +<p class="poetry">This is how it befel: a workmate of mine had +heard<br /> +Some bitter speech in my mouth, and he took me up at the word,<br +/> +And said: “Come over to-morrow to our Radical +spouting-place;<br /> +For there, if we hear nothing new, at least we shall see a new +face;<br /> +He is one of those Communist chaps, and ’tis like that you +two may agree.”<br /> +So we went, and the street was as dull and as common as aught you +could see;<br /> +Dull and dirty the room. Just over the chairman’s +chair<br /> +Was a bust, a Quaker’s face with nose cocked up in the +air;<br /> +<a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>There were +common prints on the wall of the heads of the party fray,<br /> +And Mazzini dark and lean amidst them gone astray.<br /> +Some thirty men we were of the kind that I knew full well,<br /> +Listless, rubbed down to the type of our easy-going hell.<br /> +My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat<br /> +While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and of +that.<br /> +And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed<br /> +Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named.<br /> +He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue,<br /> +And even as he began it seemed as though I knew<br /> +The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before.<br +/> +He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he +bore,<br /> +A word that he could not refrain from many a million of men.<br +/> +Nor aught seemed the sordid room and the few that were listening +then<br /> +Save the hall of the labouring earth and the world which was to +be.<br /> +Bitter to many the message, but sweet indeed unto me,<br /> +Of man without a master, and earth without a strife,<br /> +And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life:<br /> +Of peace and good-will he told, and I knew that in faith he +spake,<br /> +But his words were my very thoughts, and I saw the battle +awake,<br /> +And I followed from end to end; and triumph grew in my heart<br +/> +As he called on each that heard him to arise and play his part<br +/> +In the tale of the new-told gospel, lest as slaves they should +live and die.</p> +<p class="poetry">He ceased, and I thought the hearers would rise +up with one cry,<br /> +And bid him straight enrol them; but they, they applauded +indeed,<br /> +For the man was grown full eager, and had made them hearken and +heed:<br /> +But they sat and made no sign, and two of the glibber kind<br /> +Stood up to jeer and to carp his fiery words to blind.<br /> +I did not listen to them, but failed not his voice to hear<br /> +When he rose to answer the carpers, striving to make more +clear<br /> +That which was clear already; not overwell, I knew,<br /> +<a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>He +answered the sneers and the silence, so hot and eager he grew;<br +/> +But my hope full well he answered, and when he called again<br /> +On men to band together lest they live and die in vain,<br /> +In fear lest he should escape me, I rose ere the meeting was +done,<br /> +And gave him my name and my faith—and I was the only +one.<br /> +He smiled as he heard the jeers, and there was a shake of the +hand,<br /> +He spoke like a friend long known; and lo! I was one of the +band.</p> +<p class="poetry">And now the streets seem gay and the high stars +glittering bright;<br /> +And for me, I sing amongst them, for my heart is full and +light.<br /> +I see the deeds to be done and the day to come on the earth,<br +/> +And riches vanished away and sorrow turned to mirth;<br /> +I see the city squalor and the country stupor gone.<br /> +And we a part of it all—we twain no longer alone<br /> +In the days to come of the pleasure, in the days that are of the +fight—<br /> +I was born once long ago: I am born again to-night.</p> +<h3><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>VI<br +/> +THE NEW PROLETARIAN</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">How</span> near to the goal +are we now, and what shall we live to behold?<br /> +Will it come a day of surprise to the best of the hopeful and +bold?<br /> +Shall the sun arise some morning and see men falling to work,<br +/> +Smiling and loving their lives, not fearing the ill that may +lurk<br /> +In every house on their road, in the very ground that they +tread?<br /> +Shall the sun see famine slain, and the fear of children dead?<br +/> +Shall he look adown on men set free from the burden of care,<br +/> +And the earth grown like to himself, so comely, clean and +fair?<br /> +Or else will it linger and loiter, till hope deferred hath +spoiled<br /> +All bloom of the life of man—yea, the day for which we have +toiled?<br /> +Till our hearts be turned to stone by the griefs that we have +borne,<br /> +And our loving kindness seared by love from our anguish torn.<br +/> +Till our hope grow a wrathful fire, and the light of the second +birth<br /> +Be a flame to burn up the weeds from the lean impoverished +earth.</p> +<p class="poetry">What’s this? Meseems it was but a +little while ago<br /> +When the merest sparkle of hope set all my heart aglow!<br /> +The hope of the day was enough; but now ’tis the very +day<br /> +That wearies my hope with longing. What’s changed or +gone away?<br /> +Or what is it drags at my heart-strings?—is it aught save +the coward’s fear?<br /> +In this little room where I sit is all that I hold most +dear—<br /> +<a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>My love, +and the love we have fashioned, my wife and the little lad.<br /> +Yet the four walls look upon us with other eyes than they had,<br +/> +For indeed a thing hath happened. Last week at my craft I +worked,<br /> +Lest oft in the grey of the morning my heart should tell me I +shirked;<br /> +But to-day I work for us three, lest he and she and I<br /> +In the mud of the street should draggle till we come to the +workhouse or die.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not long to tell is the story, for, as I told +you before,<br /> +A lawyer paid me the money which came from my father’s +store.<br /> +Well, now the lawyer is dead, and a curious tangle of theft,<br +/> +It seems, is what he has lived by, and none of my money is +left.<br /> +So I who have worked for my pleasure now work for utter need:<br +/> +In “the noble army of labour” I now am a soldier +indeed.</p> +<p class="poetry">“You are young, you belong to the class +that you love,” saith the rich man’s sneer;<br /> +“Work on with your class and be thankful.” All +that I hearken to hear,<br /> +Nor heed the laughter much; have patience a little while,<br /> +I will tell you what’s in my heart, nor hide a jot by +guile.<br /> +When I worked pretty much for my pleasure I really worked with a +will,<br /> +It was well and workmanlike done, and my fellows knew my +skill,<br /> +And deemed me one of themselves though they called me gentleman +Dick,<br /> +Since they knew I had some money; but now that to work I must +stick,<br /> +Or fall into utter ruin, there’s something gone, I find;<br +/> +The work goes, cleared is the job, but there’s something +left behind;<br /> +I take up fear with my chisel, fear lies ’twixt me and my +plane,<br /> +And I wake in the merry morning to a new unwonted pain.<br /> +That’s fear: I shall live it down—and many a thing +besides<br /> +Till I win the poor dulled heart which the workman’s jacket +hides.<br /> +Were it not for the Hope of Hopes I know my journey’s +end,<br /> +And would wish I had ne’er been born the weary way to +wend.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>Now further, well you may think we have lived no +gentleman’s life,<br /> +My wife is my servant, and I am the servant of my wife,<br /> +And we make no work for each other; but country folk we were,<br +/> +And she sickened sore for the grass and the breath of the +fragrant air<br /> +That had made her lovely and strong; and so up here we came<br /> +To the northern slopes of the town to live with a country +dame,<br /> +Who can talk of the field-folks’ ways: not one of the +newest the house,<br /> +The woodwork worn to the bone, its panels the land of the +mouse,<br /> +Its windows rattling and loose, its floors all up and down;<br /> +But this at least it was, just a cottage left in the town.<br /> +There might you sit in our parlour in the Sunday afternoon<br /> +And watch the sun through the vine-leaves and fall to dreaming +that soon<br /> +You would see the grey team passing, their fetlocks wet with the +brook,<br /> +Or the shining mountainous straw-load: there the summer moon +would look<br /> +Through the leaves on the lampless room, wherein we sat we +twain,<br /> +All London vanished away; and the morn of the summer rain<br /> +Would waft us the scent of the hay; or the first faint yellow +leaves<br /> +Would flutter adown before us and tell of the acres of +sheaves.</p> +<p class="poetry">All this hath our lawyer eaten, and to-morrow +must we go<br /> +To a room near my master’s shop, in the purlieus of +Soho.<br /> +No words of its shabby meanness! But that is our +prison-cell<br /> +In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell<br +/> +The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering +spark<br /> +As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering in the +dark.</p> +<p class="poetry">Again the rich man jeereth: “The man is a +coward, or worse—<br /> +He bewails his feeble pleasure; he quails before the curse<br /> +Which many a man endureth with calm and smiling face.”<br +/> +Nay, the man is a man, by your leave! Or put yourself in +his place,<br /> +<a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>And see if +the tale reads better. The haven of rest destroyed,<br /> +And nothing left of the life that was once so well enjoyed<br /> +But leave to live and labour, and the glimmer of hope +deferred.<br /> +Now know I the cry of the poor no more as a story heard,<br /> +But rather a wordless wail forced forth from the weary heart.<br +/> +Now, now when hope ariseth I shall surely know my part.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There’s</span> a +little more to tell. When those last words were said,<br /> +At least I was yet a-working, and earning daily bread.<br /> +But now all that is changed, and meseems adown the stair<br /> +That leads to the nethermost pit, man, wife and child must +fare.</p> +<p class="poetry">When I joined the Communist folk, I did what in +me lay<br /> +To learn the grounds of their faith. I read day after +day<br /> +Whatever books I could handle, and heard about and about<br /> +What talk was going amongst them; and I burned up doubt after +doubt,<br /> +Until it befel at last that to others I needs must speak<br /> +(Indeed, they pressed me to that while yet I was weaker than +weak).<br /> +So I began the business, and in street-corners I spake<br /> +To knots of men. Indeed, that made my very heart ache,<br +/> +So hopeless it seemed; for some stood by like men of wood;<br /> +And some, though fain to listen, but a few words understood;<br +/> +And some but hooted and jeered: but whiles across some I came<br +/> +Who were keen and eager to hear; as in dry flax the flame<br /> +So the quick thought flickered amongst them: and that indeed was +a feast.<br /> +So about the streets I went, and the work on my hands +increased;<br /> +And to say the very truth betwixt the smooth and the rough<br /> +It was work and hope went with it, and I liked it well enough:<br +/> +Nor made I any secret of all that I was at<br /> +But daily talked in our shop and spoke of this and of that.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>Then vanished my money away, and like a fool I told<br +/> +Some one or two of the loss. Did that make the master +bold?<br /> +Before I was one of his lot, and as queer as my head might be<br +/> +I might do pretty much as I liked. Well now he sent for +me<br /> +And spoke out in very words my thought of the rich man’s +jeer:<br /> +“Well, sir, you have got your wish, as far as I can +hear,<br /> +And are now no thief of labour, but an honest working man:<br /> +Now I’ll give you a word of warning: stay in it as long as +you can,<br /> +This working lot that you like so: you’re pretty well off +as you are.<br /> +So take another warning: I have thought you went too far,<br /> +And now I am quite sure of it; so make an end of your talk<br /> +At once and for ever henceforth, or out of my shop you walk;<br +/> +There are plenty of men to be had who are quite as good as +you.<br /> +And mind you, anywhere else you’ll scarce get work to +do,<br /> +Unless you rule your tongue;—good morning; stick to your +work.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The hot blood rose to my eyes, somewhere a +thought did lurk<br /> +To finish both him and the job: but I knew now what I was,<br /> +And out of the little office in helpless rage did I pass<br /> +And went to my work, a <i>slave</i>, for the sake of my child and +my sweet.<br /> +Did men look for the brand on my forehead that eve as I went +through the street?<br /> +And what was the end after all? Why, one of my shopmates +heard<br /> +My next night’s speech in the street, and passed on some +bitter word,<br /> +And that week came a word with my money: “You needn’t +come again.”<br /> +And the shame of my four days’ silence had been but grief +in vain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well I see the days before me: this time we +shall not die<br /> +Nor go to the workhouse at once: I shall get work by-and-by,<br +/> +And shall work in fear at first, and at last forget my fear,<br +/> +And drudge on from day to day, since it seems that I hold life +dear.<br /> +<a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>’Tis +the lot of many millions! Yet if half of those millions +knew<br /> +The hope that my heart hath learned, we should find a deed to +do,<br /> +And who or what should withstand us? And I, e’en I +might live<br /> +To know the love of my fellows and the gifts that earth can +give.</p> +<h3><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>VII<br +/> +IN PRISON—AND AT HOME</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> first of the +nights is this, and I cannot go to bed;<br /> +I long for the dawning sorely, although when the night shall be +dead,<br /> +Scarce to me shall the day be alive. Twice twenty-eight +nights more,<br /> +Twice twenty-eight long days till the evil dream be +o’er!<br /> +And he, does he count the hours as he lies in his prison-cell?<br +/> +Does he nurse and cherish his pain? Nay, I know his strong +heart well,<br /> +Swift shall his soul fare forth; he is here, and bears me +away,<br /> +Till hand in hand we depart toward the hope of the earlier +day.<br /> +Yea, here or there he sees it: in the street, in the cell, he +sees<br /> +The vision he made me behold mid the stems of the blossoming +trees,<br /> +When spring lay light on the earth, and first and at last I +knew<br /> +How sweet was his clinging hand, how fair were the deeds he would +do.</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, how wilt thou weep and be soft and cherish +a pleasure in pain,<br /> +When the days and their task are before thee and awhile thou must +work for twain?<br /> +O face, thou shalt lose yet more of thy fairness, be thinner no +doubt,<br /> +And be waxen white and worn by the day that he cometh out!<br /> +Hand, how pale thou shalt be! how changed from the sunburnt +hand<br /> +That he kissed as it handled the rake in the noon of the summer +land!</p> +<p class="poetry">Let me think then it is but a trifle: the +neighbours have told me so;<br /> +“Two months! why that is nothing and the time will speedily +go.”<br /> +<a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>’Tis +nothing—O empty bed, let me work then for his sake!<br /> +I will copy out the paper which he thought the News might +take,<br /> +If my eyes may see the letters; ’tis a picture of our +life<br /> +And the little deeds of our days ere we thought of prison and +strife.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yes, neighbour, yes I am early—and I was +late last night;<br /> +Bedless I wore through the hours and made a shift to write.<br /> +It was kind of you to come, nor will it grieve me at all<br /> +To tell you why he’s in prison and how the thing did +befal;<br /> +For I know you are with us at heart, and belike will join us +soon.<br /> +It was thus: we went to a meeting on Saturday afternoon,<br /> +At a new place down in the West, a wretched quarter enough,<br /> +Where the rich men’s houses are elbowed by ragged streets +and rough,<br /> +Which are worse than they seem to be. (Poor thing! you know +too well<br /> +How pass the days and the nights within that bricken hell!)<br /> +There, then, on a bit of waste we stood ’twixt the rich and +the poor;<br /> +And Jack was the first to speak; that was he that you met at the +door<br /> +Last week. It was quiet at first; and dull they most of +them stood<br /> +As though they heeded nothing, nor thought of bad or of good,<br +/> +Not even that they were poor, and haggard and dirty and dull:<br +/> +Nay, some were so rich indeed that they with liquor were full,<br +/> +And dull wrath rose in their souls as the hot words went by their +ears,<br /> +For they deemed they were mocked and rated by men that were more +than their peers.<br /> +But for some, they seemed to think that a prelude was all this<br +/> +To the preachment of saving of souls, and hell, and endless +bliss;<br /> +While some (O the hearts of slaves!) although they might +understand,<br /> +When they heard their masters and feeders called thieves of +wealth and of land,<br /> +Were as angry as though <i>they</i> were cursed. Withal +there were some that heard,<br /> +And stood and pondered it all, and garnered a hope and a word.<br +/> +<a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>Ah! heavy +my heart was grown as I gazed on the terrible throng.<br /> +Lo! these that should have been the glad and the deft and the +strong,<br /> +How were they dull and abased as the very filth of the road!<br +/> +And who should waken their souls or clear their hearts of the +load?</p> +<p class="poetry">The crowd was growing and growing, and +therewith the jeering grew;<br /> +And now that the time was come for an ugly brawl I knew,<br /> +When I saw how midst of the workmen some well-dressed men there +came,<br /> +Of the scum of the well-to-do, brutes void of pity or shame;<br +/> +The thief is a saint beside them. These raised a jeering +noise,<br /> +And our speaker quailed before it, and the hubbub drowned his +voice.<br /> +Then Richard put him aside and rose at once in his place,<br /> +And over the rags and the squalor beamed out his beautiful +face,<br /> +And his sweet voice rang through the tumult, and I think the +crowd would have hushed<br /> +And hearkened his manly words; but a well-dressed reptile +pushed<br /> +Right into the ring about us and screeched out infamies<br /> +That sickened the soul to hearken; till he caught my angry +eyes<br /> +And my voice that cried out at him, and straight on me he +turned,<br /> +A foul word smote my heart and his cane on my shoulders +burned.<br /> +But e’en as a kestrel stoops down Richard leapt from his +stool<br /> +And drave his strong right hand amidst the mouth of the fool.<br +/> +Then all was mingled together, and away from him was I torn,<br +/> +And, hustled hither and thither, on the surging crowd was +borne;<br /> +But at last I felt my feet, for the crowd began to thin,<br /> +And I looked about for Richard that away from thence we might +win;<br /> +When lo, the police amidst us, and Richard hustled along<br /> +Betwixt a pair of blue-coats as the doer of all the wrong!</p> +<p class="poetry">Little longer, friend, is the story; I scarce +have seen him again;<br /> +I could not get him bail despite my trouble and pain;<br /> +<a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>And this +morning he stood in the dock: for all that that might avail,<br +/> +They might just as well have dragged him at once to the destined +jail.<br /> +The police had got their man and they meant to keep him there,<br +/> +And whatever tale was needful they had no trouble to swear.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, the white-haired fool on the bench was +busy it seems that day,<br /> +And so with the words “Two months,” he swept the case +away;<br /> +Yet he lectured my man ere he went, but not for the riot +indeed<br /> +For which he was sent to prison, but for holding a dangerous +creed.<br /> +“What have you got to do to preach such perilous stuff?<br +/> +To take some care of yourself should find you work enough.<br /> +If you needs must preach or lecture, then hire a chapel or +hall;<br /> +Though indeed if you take my advice you’ll just preach +nothing at all,<br /> +But stick to your work: you seem clever; who knows but you might +rise,<br /> +And become a little builder should you condescend to be wise?<br +/> +For in spite of your silly sedition, the land that we live in is +free,<br /> +And opens a pathway to merit for you as well as for +me.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, friend, am I grown light-headed with the +lonely grief of the night,<br /> +That I babble of this babble? Woe’s me, how little +and light<br /> +Is this beginning of trouble to all that yet shall be +borne—<br /> +At worst but as the shower that lays but a yard of the corn<br /> +Before the hailstorm cometh and flattens the field to the +earth.</p> +<p class="poetry">O for a word from my love of the hope of the +second birth!<br /> +Could he clear my vision to see the sword creeping out of the +sheath<br /> +Inch by inch as we writhe in the toils of our living death!<br /> +Could he but strengthen my heart to know that we cannot fail;<br +/> +For alas, I am lonely here—helpless and feeble and +frail;<br /> +I am e’en as the poor of the earth, e’en they that +are now alive;<br /> +And where is their might and their cunning with the mighty of men +to strive?<br /> +<a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>Though +they that come after be strong to win the day and the crown,<br +/> +Ah, ever must we the deedless to the deedless dark go down,<br /> +Still crying, “To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow yet shall +be<br /> +The new-born sun’s arising o’er happy earth and +sea”—<br /> +And we not there to greet it—for to-day and its life we +yearn,<br /> +And where is the end of toiling and whitherward now shall we +turn<br /> +But to patience, ever patience, and yet and yet to bear;<br /> +And yet, forlorn, unanswered as oft before to hear,<br /> +Through the tales of the ancient fathers and the dreams that mock +our wrong,<br /> +That cry to the naked heavens, “How long, O Lord! how +long?”</p> +<h3><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>VIII<br /> +THE HALF OF LIFE GONE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> days have slain +the days, and the seasons have gone by<br /> +And brought me the summer again; and here on the grass I lie<br +/> +As erst I lay and was glad ere I meddled with right and with +wrong.<br /> +Wide lies the mead as of old, and the river is creeping along<br +/> +By the side of the elm-clad bank that turns its weedy stream,<br +/> +And grey o’er its hither lip the quivering rushes gleam.<br +/> +There is work in the mead as of old; they are eager at winning +the hay,<br /> +While every sun sets bright and begets a fairer day.<br /> +The forks shine white in the sun round the yellow red-wheeled +wain,<br /> +Where the mountain of hay grows fast; and now from out of the +lane<br /> +Comes the ox-team drawing another, comes the bailiff and the +beer,<br /> +And thump, thump, goes the farmer’s nag o’er the +narrow bridge of the weir.<br /> +High up and light are the clouds, and though the swallows flit<br +/> +So high o’er the sunlit earth, they are well a part of +it,<br /> +And so, though high over them, are the wings of the wandering +herne;<br /> +In measureless depths above him doth the fair sky quiver and +burn;<br /> +The dear sun floods the land as the morning falls toward noon,<br +/> +And a little wind is awake in the best of the latter June.</p> +<p class="poetry">They are busy winning the hay, and the life and +the picture they make,<br /> +If I were as once I was, I should deem it made for my sake;<br /> +For here if one need not work is a place for happy rest,<br /> +While one’s thought wends over the world, north, south, and +east and west.<br /> +<a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>There are +the men and the maids, and the wives and the gaffers grey<br /> +Of the fields I know so well, and but little changed are they<br +/> +Since I was a lad amongst them; and yet how great is the +change!<br /> +Strange are they grown unto me; yea, I to myself am strange.<br +/> +Their talk and their laughter mingling with the music of the +meads<br /> +Has now no meaning to me to help or to hinder my needs,<br /> +So far from them have I drifted. And yet amidst them +goes<br /> +A part of myself, my boy, and of pleasure and pain he knows,<br +/> +And deems it something strange when he is other than glad.<br /> +Lo now! the woman that stoops and kisses the face of the lad,<br +/> +And puts a rake in his hand and laughs in his laughing +face—<br /> +Whose is the voice that laughs in the old familiar place?<br /> +Whose should it be but my love’s, if my love were yet on +the earth?<br /> +Could she refrain from the fields where my joy and her joy had +birth,<br /> +When I was there and her child, on the grass that knew her +feet<br /> +Mid the flowers that led her on when the summer eve was +sweet?</p> +<p class="poetry">No, no, it is she no longer; never again can +she come<br /> +And behold the hay-wains creeping o’er the meadows of her +home;<br /> +No more can she kiss her son or put the rake in his hand<br /> +That she handled a while agone in the midst of the haymaking +band.<br /> +Her laughter is gone and her life; there is no such thing on the +earth,<br /> +No share for me then in the stir, no share in the hurry and +mirth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, let me look and believe that all these +will vanish away,<br /> +At least when the night has fallen, and that she will be there +mid the hay,<br /> +Happy and weary with work, waiting and longing for love.<br /> +There will she be, as of old, when the great moon hung above,<br +/> +And lightless and dead was the village, and nought but the weir +was awake;<br /> +There will she rise to meet me, and my hands will she hasten to +take,<br /> +And thence shall we wander away, and over the ancient bridge<br +/> +By many a rose-hung hedgerow, till we reach the sun-burnt +ridge<br /> +<a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>And the +great trench digged by the Romans: there then awhile shall we +stand,<br /> +To watch the dawn come creeping o’er the fragrant lovely +land,<br /> +Till all the world awaketh, and draws us down, we twain,<br /> +To the deeds of the field and the fold and the merry +summer’s gain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah thus, only thus shall I see her, in dreams +of the day or the night,<br /> +When my soul is beguiled of its sorrow to remember past +delight.<br /> +She is gone. She was and she is not; there is no such thing +on the earth<br /> +But e’en as a picture painted; and for me there is void and +dearth<br /> +That I cannot name or measure.<br /> + + +Yet for me and all these she died,<br /> +E’en as she lived for awhile, that the better day might +betide.<br /> +Therefore I live, and I shall live till the last day’s work +shall fail.<br /> +Have patience now but a little and I will tell you the tale<br /> +Of how and why she died, and why I am weak and worn,<br /> +And have wandered away to the meadows and the place where I was +born:<br /> +But here and to-day I cannot; for ever my thought will stray<br +/> +To that hope fulfilled for a little and the bliss of the earlier +day.<br /> +Of the great world’s hope and anguish to-day I scarce can +think:<br /> +Like a ghost from the lives of the living and their earthly deeds +I shrink.<br /> +I will go adown by the water and over the ancient bridge,<br /> +And wend in our footsteps of old till I come to the sun-burnt +ridge,<br /> +And the great trench digged by the Romans; and thence awhile will +I gaze,<br /> +And see three teeming counties stretch out till they fade in the +haze;<br /> +And in all the dwellings of man that thence mine eyes shall +see,<br /> +What man as hapless as I am beneath the sun shall be?</p> +<p class="poetry">O fool, what words are these? Thou hast a +sorrow to nurse,<br /> +And thou hast been bold and happy; but these, if they utter a +curse,<br /> +No sting it has and no meaning—it is empty sound on the +air.<br /> +Thy life is full of mourning, and theirs so empty and bare<br /> +<a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>That they +have no words of complaining; nor so happy have they been<br /> +That they may measure sorrow or tell what grief may mean.<br /> +And thou, thou hast deeds to do, and toil to meet thee soon;<br +/> +Depart and ponder on these through the sun-worn afternoon.</p> +<h3><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>IX<br +/> +A NEW FRIEND</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">have</span> promised to +tell you the story of how I was left alone<br /> +Sick and wounded and sore, and why the woman is gone<br /> +That I deemed a part of my life. Tell me when all is +told,<br /> +If you deem it fit that the earth, that the world of men should +hold<br /> +My work and my weariness still; yet think of that other life,<br +/> +The child of me and of her, and the years and the coming +strife.</p> +<p class="poetry">After I came out of prison our living was hard +to earn<br /> +By the work of my hands, and of hers; to shifts we had to +turn,<br /> +Such as the poor know well, and the rich cannot understand,<br /> +And just out of the gutter we stood, still loving and hand in +hand.</p> +<p class="poetry">Do you ask me if still amidst all I held the +hunt in view,<br /> +And the hope of the morning of life, all the things I should do +and undo?<br /> +Be easy, I am not a coward: nay little prudence I learned,<br /> +I spoke and I suffered for speaking, and my meat by my manhood +was burned.<br /> +When the poor man thinks—and rebels, the whip lies ready +anear;<br /> +But he who is rebel and rich may live safe for many a year,<br /> +While he warms his heart with pictures of all the glory to +come.<br /> +There’s the storm of the press and the critics maybe, but +sweet is his home,<br /> +There is meat in the morn and the even, and rest when the day is +done,<br /> +All is fair and orderly there as the rising and setting +sun—<br /> +<a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>And I know +both the rich and the poor.<br /> + Well, I grew +bitter they said;<br /> +’Tis not unlike that I did, for bitter indeed was my +bread,<br /> +And surely the nursling plant shall smack of its nourishing +soil.<br /> +And here was our life in short, pinching and worry and toil,<br +/> +One petty fear thrust out by another come in its place,<br /> +Each scrap of life but a fear, and the sum of it wretched and +base.<br /> +E’en so fare millions of men, where men for money are +made,<br /> +Where the poor are dumb and deedless, where the rich are not +afraid.<br /> +Ah, am I bitter again? Well, these are our +breeding-stock,<br /> +The very base of order, and the state’s foundation rock;<br +/> +Is it so good and so safe that their manhood should be outworn<br +/> +By the struggle for anxious life, the dull pain dismally +borne,<br /> +Till all that was man within them is dead and vanished away?<br +/> +Were it not even better that all these should think on a day<br +/> +As they look on each other’s sad faces, and see how many +they are:<br /> +“What are these tales of old time of men who were mighty in +war?<br /> +They fought for some city’s dominion, for the name of a +forest or field;<br /> +They fell that no alien’s token should be blazoned on their +shield;<br /> +And for this is their valour praised and dear is their renown,<br +/> +And their names are beloved for ever and they wear the +patriot’s crown;<br /> +And shall we then wait in the streets and this heap of misery,<br +/> +Till their stones rise up to help us or the far heavens set us +free?<br /> +For we, we shall fight for no name, no blazon on banner or +shield;<br /> +But that man to man may hearken and the earth her increase +yield;<br /> +That never again in the world may be sights like we have seen;<br +/> +That never again in the world may be men like we have been,<br /> +That never again like ours may be manhood spoilt and +blurred.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea even so was I bitter, and this was my +evilest word:<br /> +“Spend and be spent for our hope, and you at least shall be +free,<br /> +Though you be rugged and coarse, as wasted and worn as you +be.”<br /> +<a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>Well, +“bitter” I was, and denounced, and scarcely at last +might we stand<br /> +From out of the very gutter, as we wended hand in hand.<br /> +I had written before for the papers, but so “bitter” +was I grown,<br /> +That none of them now would have me that could pay me +half-a-crown,<br /> +And the worst seemed closing around us; when as it needs must +chance,<br /> +I spoke at some Radical Club of the Great Revolution in +France.<br /> +Indeed I said nothing new to those who had learned it all,<br /> +And yet as something strange on some of the folk did it fall.<br +/> +It was late in the terrible war, and France to the end drew +nigh,<br /> +And some of us stood agape to see how the war would die,<br /> +And what would spring from its ashes. So when the talk was +o’er<br /> +And after the stir and excitement I felt the burden I bore<br /> +Heavier yet for it all, there came to speak to me<br /> +A serious well-dressed man, a “gentleman,” young I +could see;<br /> +And we fell to talk together, and he shyly gave me praise,<br /> +And asked, though scarcely in words, of my past and my +“better days.”<br /> +Well, there,—I let it all out, and I flushed as I strode +along,<br /> +(For we were walking by now) and bitterly spoke of the wrong.<br +/> +Maybe I taught him something, but ready he was to learn,<br /> +And had come to our workmen meetings some knowledge of men to +learn.<br /> +He kindled afresh at my words, although to try him I spake<br /> +More roughly than I was wont; but every word did he take<br /> +For what it was really worth, nor even laughter he spared,<br /> +As though he would look on life of its rags of habit bared.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, why should I be ashamed that he helped me +at my need?<br /> +My wife and my child, must I kill them? And the man was a +friend indeed,<br /> +And the work that he got me I did (it was writing, you +understand)<br /> +As well as another might do it. To be short, he joined our +band<br /> +Before many days were over, and we saw him everywhere<br /> +That we workmen met together, though I brought him not to my +lair.<br /> +Eager he grew for the Cause, and we twain grew friend and +friend:<br /> +<a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>He was +dainty of mind and of body; most brave, as he showed in the +end;<br /> +Merry despite of his sadness, quick-witted and speedy to see:<br +/> +Like a perfect knight of old time as the poets would have them to +be.<br /> +That was the friend that I won by my bitter speech at last.<br /> +He loved me; he grieved my soul: now the love and the grief are +past;<br /> +He is gone with his eager learning, his sadness and his mirth,<br +/> +His hope and his fond desire. There is no such thing on the +earth.<br /> +He died not unbefriended—nor unbeloved maybe.<br /> +Betwixt my life and his longing there rolls a boundless sea.<br +/> +And what are those memories now to all that I have to do,<br /> +The deeds to be done so many, the days of my life so few?</p> +<h3><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>X<br +/> +READY TO DEPART</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">said</span> of my friend +new-found that at first he saw not my lair;<br /> +Yet he and I and my wife were together here and there;<br /> +And at last as my work increased and my den to a dwelling +grew,<br /> +He came there often enough, and yet more together we drew.<br /> +Then came a change in the man; for a month he kept away,<br /> +Then came again and was with us for a fortnight every day,<br /> +But often he sat there silent, which was little his wont with +us.<br /> +And at first I had no inkling of what constrained him thus;<br /> +I might have thought that he faltered, but now and again there +came,<br /> +When we spoke of the Cause and its doings, a flash of his eager +flame,<br /> +And he seemed himself for a while; then the brightness would fade +away,<br /> +And he gloomed and shrank from my eyes.<br /> + Thus passed day +after day,<br /> +And grieved I grew, and I pondered: till at last one eve we +sat<br /> +In the fire-lit room together, and talked of this and that,<br /> +But chiefly indeed of the war and what would come of it;<br /> +For Paris drew near to its fall, and wild hopes ’gan to +flit<br /> +Amidst us Communist folk; and we talked of what might be done<br +/> +When the Germans had gone their ways and the two were left +alone,<br /> +Betrayers and betrayed in war-worn wasted France.</p> +<p class="poetry">As I spoke the word “betrayed,” my +eyes met his in a glance,<br /> +<a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>And +swiftly he turned away; then back with a steady gaze<br /> +He turned on me; and it seemed as when a sword-point plays<br /> +Round the sword in a battle’s beginning and the coming on +of strife.<br /> +For I knew though he looked on me, he saw not me, but my wife:<br +/> +And he reddened up to the brow, and the tumult of the blood<br /> +Nigh blinded my eyes for a while, that I scarce saw bad or +good,<br /> +Till I knew that he was arisen and had gone without a word.<br /> +Then I turned about unto her, and a quivering voice I heard<br /> +Like music without a meaning, and twice I heard my name.<br /> +“O Richard, Richard!” she said, and her arms about me +came,<br /> +And her tears and the lips that I loved were on my face once +more.<br /> +A while I clung to her body, and longing sweet and sore<br /> +Beguiled my heart of its sorrow; then we sundered and sore she +wept,<br /> +While fair pictures of days departed about my sad heart crept,<br +/> +And mazed I felt and weary. But we sat apart again,<br /> +Not speaking, while between us was the sharp and bitter pain<br +/> +As the sword ’twixt the lovers bewildered in the fruitless +marriage bed.<br /> +Yet a while, and we spoke together, and I scarce knew what I +said,<br /> +But it was not wrath or reproaching, or the chill of love-born +hate;<br /> +For belike around and about us, we felt the brooding fate.<br /> +We were gentle and kind together, and if any had seen us so,<br +/> +They had said, “These two are one in the face of all +trouble and woe.”<br /> +But indeed as a wedded couple we shrank from the eyes of men,<br +/> +As we dwelt together and pondered on the days that come not +again.</p> +<p class="poetry">Days passed and we dwelt together; nor Arthur +came for awhile;<br /> +Gravely it was and sadly, and with no greeting smile,<br /> +That we twain met at our meetings: but no growth of hate was +yet,<br /> +Though my heart at first would be sinking as our thoughts and our +eyes they met:<br /> +And when he spake amidst us and as one we two agreed,<br /> +And I knew of his faith and his wisdom, then sore was my heart +indeed.<br /> +<a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>We shrank +from meeting alone: for the words we had to say<br /> +Our thoughts would nowise fashion—not yet for many a +day.</p> +<p class="poetry">Unhappy days of all days! Yet O might +they come again!<br /> +So sore as my longing returneth to their trouble and sorrow and +pain!</p> +<p class="poetry">But time passed, and once we were sitting, my +wife and I in our room,<br /> +And it was in the London twilight and the February gloom,<br /> +When there came a knock, and he entered all pale, though bright +were his eyes,<br /> +And I knew that something had happened, and my heart to my mouth +did arise.<br /> +“It is over,” he said “—and beginning; +for Paris has fallen at last,<br /> +And who knows what next shall happen after all that has happened +and passed?<br /> +There now may we all be wanted.”<br /> + I took up the +word: “Well then<br /> +Let us go, we three together, and there to die like +men.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Nay,” he said, “to live and +be happy like men.” Then he flushed up red,<br /> +And she no less as she hearkened, as one thought through their +bodies had sped.<br /> +Then I reached out my hand unto him, and I kissed her once on the +brow,<br /> +But no word craving forgiveness, and no word of pardon e’en +now,<br /> +Our minds for our mouths might fashion.<br /> + In the February +gloom<br /> +And into the dark we sat planning, and there was I in the +room,<br /> +And in speech I gave and I took; but yet alone and apart<br /> +In the fields where I once was a youngling whiles wandered the +thoughts of my heart,<br /> +And whiles in the unseen Paris, and the streets made ready for +war.<br /> +Night grew and we lit the candles, and we drew together more,<br +/> +<a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>And whiles +we differed a little as we settled what to do,<br /> +And my soul was cleared of confusion as nigher the deed-time +drew.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, I took my child into the country, as we +had settled there,<br /> +And gave him o’er to be cherished by a kindly woman’s +care,<br /> +A friend of my mother’s, but younger: and for Arthur, I let +him give<br /> +His money, as mine was but little, that the boy might flourish +and live,<br /> +Lest we three, or I and Arthur, should perish in tumult and +war,<br /> +And at least the face of his father he should look on never +more.<br /> +You cry out shame on my honour? But yet remember again<br +/> +That a man in my boy was growing; must my passing pride and +pain<br /> +Undo the manhood within him and his days and their doings +blight?<br /> +So I thrust my pride away, and I did what I deemed was right,<br +/> +And left him down in our country.<br /> + And well may you +think indeed<br /> +How my sad heart swelled at departing from the peace of river and +mead,<br /> +But I held all sternly aback and again to the town did I pass.<br +/> +And as alone I journeyed, this was ever in my heart:<br /> +“They may die; they may live and be happy; but for me I +know my part,<br /> +In Paris to do my utmost, and there in Paris to die!”<br /> +And I said, “The day of the deeds and the day of +deliverance is nigh.”</p> +<h3><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>XI<br +/> +A GLIMPSE OF THE COMING DAY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It</span> was strange +indeed, that journey! Never yet had I crossed the sea<br /> +Or looked on another people than the folk that had fostered +me,<br /> +And my heart rose up and fluttered as in the misty night<br /> +We came on the fleet of the fishers slow rolling in the light<br +/> +Of the hidden moon, as the sea dim under the false dawn lay;<br +/> +And so like shadows of ships through the night they faded +away,<br /> +And Calais pier was upon us. Dreamlike it was indeed<br /> +As we sat in the train together, and toward the end made +speed.<br /> +But a dull sleep came upon me, and through the sleep a dream<br +/> +Of the Frenchman who once was my master by the side of the +willowy stream;<br /> +And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet,<br /> +And the victory never won, and bade me never forget,<br /> +While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped +perch.<br /> +Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long +lurch,<br /> +I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again,<br /> +And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the +poplar plain,<br /> +By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs +warped and bent,<br /> +And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things fair and +innocent.<br /> +And there sat my wife before me, and she, too, dreamed as she +slept;<br /> +For the slow tears fell from her eyelids as in her sleep she +wept.<br /> +<a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>But Arthur +sat by my side and waked; and flushed was his face,<br /> +And his eyes were quick to behold the picture of each fair +place<br /> +That we flashed by as on we hurried; and I knew that the joy of +life<br /> +Was strongly stirred within him by the thought of the coming +strife.<br /> +Then I too thought for a little, It is good in grief’s +despite,<br /> +It is good to see earth’s pictures, and so live in the day +and the light.<br /> +Yea, we deemed that to death we were hastening, and it made our +vision clear,<br /> +And we knew the delight of our life-days, and held their sorrow +dear.</p> +<p class="poetry">But now when we came unto Paris and were out in +the sun and the street,<br /> +It was strange to see the faces that our wondering eyes did +meet;<br /> +Such joy and peace and pleasure! That folk were glad we +knew,<br /> +But knew not the why and the wherefore; and we who had just come +through<br /> +The vanquished land and down-cast, and there at St. Denis +e’en now<br /> +Had seen the German soldiers, and heard their bugles blow,<br /> +And the drum and fife go rattling through the freshness of the +morn—<br /> +Yet here we beheld all joyous the folk they had made forlorn!<br +/> +So at last from a grey stone building we saw a great flag fly,<br +/> +One colour, red and solemn ’gainst the blue of the +spring-tide sky,<br /> +And we stopped and turned to each other, and as each at each did +we gaze,<br /> +The city’s hope enwrapped us with joy and great amaze.</p> +<p class="poetry">As folk in a dream we washed and we ate, and in +all detail,<br /> +Oft told and in many a fashion, did we have all yesterday’s +tale:<br /> +How while we were threading our tangle of trouble in London +there,<br /> +And I for my part, let me say it, within but a step of +despair,<br /> +In Paris the day of days had betid; for the vile dwarf’s +stroke,<br /> +To madden Paris and crush her, had been struck and the dull sword +broke;<br /> +There was now no foe and no fool in the city, and Paris was +free;<br /> +And e’en as she is this morning, to-morrow all France will +be.<br /> +<a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>We heard, +and our hearts were saying, “In a little while all the +earth—”<br /> +And that day at last of all days I knew what life was worth;<br +/> +For I saw what few have beheld, a folk with all hearts gay.<br /> +Then at last I knew indeed that our word of the coming day,<br /> +That so oft in grief and in sorrow I had preached, and scarcely +knew<br /> +If it was but despair of the present or the hope of the day that +was due—<br /> +I say that I saw it now, real, solid and at hand.</p> +<p class="poetry">And strange how my heart went back to our +little nook of the land,<br /> +And how plain and clear I saw it, as though I longed indeed<br /> +To give it a share of the joy and the satisfaction of need<br /> +That here in the folk I beheld. For this in our country +spring<br /> +Did the starlings bechatter the gables, and the thrush in the +thorn-bush sing,<br /> +And the green cloud spread o’er the willows, and the little +children rejoice<br /> +And shout midst a nameless longing to the morning’s mingled +voice;<br /> +For this was the promise of spring-tide, and the new leaves +longing to burst,<br /> +And the white roads threading the acres, and the sun-warmed +meadows athirst.<br /> +Once all was the work of sorrow and the life without reward,<br +/> +And the toil that fear hath bidden, and the folly of master and +lord;<br /> +But now are all things changing, and hope without a fear<br /> +Shall speed us on through the story of the changes of the +year.<br /> +Now spring shall pluck the garland that summer weaves for all,<br +/> +And autumn spread the banquet and winter fill the hall.<br /> +O earth, thou kind bestower, thou ancient fruitful place,<br /> +How lovely and beloved now gleams thy happy face!</p> +<p class="poetry">And O mother, mother, I said, hadst thou known +as I lay in thy lap,<br /> +And for me thou hopedst and fearedst, on what days my life should +hap,<br /> +Hadst thou known of the death that I look for, and the deeds +wherein I should deal,<br /> +How calm had been thy gladness! How sweet hadst thou smiled +on my weal!<br /> +<a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>As some +woman of old hadst thou wondered, who hath brought forth a god of +the earth,<br /> +And in joy that knoweth no speech she dreams of the happy +birth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea, fair were those hours indeed, whatever +hereafter might come,<br /> +And they swept over all my sorrow, and all thought of my wildered +home.<br /> +But not for dreams of rejoicing had we come across the sea:<br /> +That day we delivered the letters that our friends had given to +me,<br /> +And we craved for some work for the cause. And what work +was there indeed,<br /> +But to learn the business of battle and the manner of dying at +need?<br /> +We three could think of none other, and we wrought our best +therein;<br /> +And both of us made a shift the sergeant’s stripes to +win,<br /> +For diligent were we indeed: and he, as in all he did,<br /> +Showed a cheerful ready talent that nowise might be hid,<br /> +And yet hurt the pride of no man that he needs must step +before.<br /> +But as for my wife, the <i>brancard</i> of the ambulance-women +she wore,<br /> +And gently and bravely would serve us; and to all as a sister to +be—<br /> +A sister amidst of the strangers—and, alas! a sister to +me.</p> +<h3><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>XII<br +/> +MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">So</span> we dwelt in the +war-girdled city as a very part of its life.<br /> +Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife,<br +/> +I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the +first,<br /> +The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst.<br +/> +But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our +own;<br /> +And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages +had sown,<br /> +Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the +dead;<br /> +Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that +her lovers have shed,<br /> +With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day,<br /> +With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn +away,<br /> +With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the +jostle of war,<br /> +With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar.</p> +<p class="poetry">O Earth, Earth, look on thy lovers, who knew +all thy gifts and thy gain,<br /> +But cast them aside for thy sake, and caught up barren pain!<br +/> +Indeed of some art thou mindful, and ne’er shalt forget +their tale,<br /> +Till shrunk are the floods of thine ocean and thy sun is waxen +pale.<br /> +But rather I bid thee remember e’en these of the latter +days,<br /> +Who were fed by no fair promise and made drunken by no praise.<br +/> +For them no opening heaven reached out the martyr’s +crown;<br /> +No folk delivered wept them, and no harvest of renown<br /> +<a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>They +reaped with the scythe of battle; nor round their dying bed<br /> +Did kindly friendly farewell the dew of blessing shed;<br /> +In the sordid streets of the city mid a folk that knew them +not,<br /> +In the living death of the prison didst thou deal them out their +lot,<br /> +Yet foundest them deeds to be doing; and no feeble folk were +they<br /> +To scowl on their own undoing and wail their lives away;<br /> +But oft were they blithe and merry and deft from the strife to +wring<br /> +Some joy that others gained not midst their peaceful +wayfaring.<br /> +So fared they, giftless ever, and no help of fortune sought.<br +/> +Their life was thy deliverance, O Earth, and for thee they +fought;<br /> +Mid the jeers of the happy and deedless, mid failing friends they +went<br /> +To their foredoomed fruitful ending on the love of thee +intent.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea and we were a part of it all, the beginning +of the end,<br /> +That first fight of the uttermost battle whither all the nations +wend;<br /> +And yet could I tell you its story, you might think it little and +mean.<br /> +For few of you now will be thinking of the day that might have +been,<br /> +And fewer still meseemeth of the day that yet shall be,<br /> +That shall light up that first beginning and its tangled +misery.<br /> +For indeed a very machine is the war that now men wage;<br /> +Nor have we hold of its handle, we gulled of our heritage,<br /> +We workmen slaves of machines. Well, it ground us small +enough<br /> +This machine of the beaten Bourgeois; though oft the work was +rough<br /> +That it turned out for its money. Like other young soldiers +at first<br /> +I scarcely knew the wherefore why our side had had the worst;<br +/> +For man to man and in knots we faced the matter well;<br /> +And I thought, well to-morrow or next day a new tale will be to +tell.<br /> +I was fierce and not afraid; yet O were the wood-sides fair,<br +/> +And the crofts and the sunny gardens, though death they harboured +there!<br /> +And few but fools are fain of leaving the world outright,<br /> +And the story over and done, and an end of the life and the +light.<br /> +No hatred of life, thou knowest, O Earth, mid the bullets I +bore,<br /> +<a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>Though +pain and grief oppressed me that I never may suffer more.<br /> +But in those days past over did life and death seem one;<br /> +Yea the life had we attained to which could never be undone.</p> +<p class="poetry">You would have me tell of the fighting? +Well, you know it was new to me,<br /> +Yet it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and ever would +be.<br /> +The morn when we made that sally, some thought (and yet not I)<br +/> +That a few days and all would be over: just a few had got to +die,<br /> +And the rest would be happy thenceforward. But my stubborn +country blood<br /> +Was bidding me hold my halloo till we were out of the wood.<br /> +And that was the reason perhaps why little disheartened I was,<br +/> +As we stood all huddled together that night in a helpless +mass,<br /> +As beaten men are wont: and I knew enough of war<br /> +To know midst its unskilled labour what slips full often are.</p> +<p class="poetry">There was Arthur unhurt beside me, and my wife +come back again,<br /> +And surely that eve between us there was love though no lack of +pain<br /> +As we talked all the matter over, and our hearts spake more than +our lips;<br /> +And we said, “We shall learn, we shall learn—yea, +e’en from disasters and slips.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, many a thing we learned, but we learned +not how to prevail<br /> +O’er the brutal war-machine, the ruthless grinder of +bale;<br /> +By the bourgeois world it was made, for the bourgeois world; and +we,<br /> +We were e’en as the village weaver ’gainst the +power-loom, maybe.<br /> +It drew on nearer and nearer, and we ’gan to look to the +end—<br /> +We three, at least—and our lives began with death to +blend;<br /> +Though we were long a-dying—though I dwell on yet as a +ghost<br /> +In the land where we once were happy, to look on the loved and +the lost.</p> +<h3><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>XIII<br /> +THE STORY’S ENDING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">How</span> can I tell you +the story of the Hope and its defence?<br /> +We wrought in a narrow circle; it was hither and thither and +thence;<br /> +To the walls, and back for a little; to the fort and there to +abide,<br /> +Grey-beards and boys and women; they lived there—and they +died;<br /> +Nor counted much in the story. I have heard it told since +then,<br /> +And mere lies our deeds have turned to in the mouths of happy +men,<br /> +And e’en those will be soon forgotten as the world wends on +its way,<br /> +Too busy for truth or kindness. Yet my soul is seeing the +day<br /> +When those who are now but children the new generation shall +be,<br /> +And e’en in our land of commerce and the workshop over the +sea,<br /> +Amid them shall spring up the story; yea the very breath of the +air<br /> +To the yearning hearts of the workers true tale of it all shall +bear.<br /> +Year after year shall men meet with the red flag over head,<br /> +And shall call on the help of the vanquished and the kindness of +the dead.<br /> +And time that weareth most things, and the years that overgrow<br +/> +The tale of the fools triumphant, yet clearer and clearer shall +show<br /> +The deeds of the helpers of menfolk to every age and clime,<br /> +The deeds of the cursed and the conquered that were wise before +their time.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of these were my wife and my friend; there they +ended their wayfaring<br /> +Like the generations before them thick thronging as leaves of the +spring,<br /> +Fast falling as leaves of the autumn as the ancient singer hath +said,<br /> +And each one with a love and a story. Ah the grief of the +early dead!<br /> +<a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>“What is all this talk?” you are saying; +“why all this long delay?”<br /> +Yes, indeed, it is hard in the telling. Of things too +grievous to say<br /> +I would be, but cannot be, silent. Well, I hurry on to the +end—<br /> +For it drew to the latter ending of the hope that we helped to +defend.<br /> +The forts were gone and the foemen drew near to the thin-manned +wall,<br /> +And it wanted not many hours to the last hour and the fall,<br /> +And we lived amid the bullets and seldom went away<br /> +To what as yet were the streets by night-tide or by day.<br /> +We three, we fought together, and I did the best I could,<br /> +Too busy to think of the ending; but Arthur was better than +good;<br /> +Resourceful, keen and eager, from post to post he ran,<br /> +To thrust out aught that was moving and bring up the uttermost +man,<br /> +He was gone on some such errand, and was absent a little +space,<br /> +When I turned about for a moment and saw my wife’s fair +face,<br /> +And her foot set firm on the rampart, as she hastened here and +there,<br /> +To some of our wounded comrades such help as she could to +bear.<br /> +Then straight she looked upon me with such lovely, friendly +eyes<br /> +Of the days gone by and remembered, that up from my heart +’gan rise<br /> +The choking sobbing passion; but I kept it aback, and smiled,<br +/> +And waved my hand aloft—But therewith her face turned +wild<br /> +In a moment of time, and she stared along the length of the +wall,<br /> +And I saw a man who was running and crouching, stagger and +fall,<br /> +And knew it for Arthur at once; but voiceless toward him she +ran,<br /> +I with her, crying aloud. But or ever we reached the +man,<br /> +Lo! a roar and a crash around us and my sick brain whirling +around,<br /> +And a white light turning to black, and no sky and no air and no +ground,<br /> +And then what I needs must tell of as a great blank; but +indeed<br /> +No words to tell of its horror hath language for my need:<br /> +As a map is to a picture, so is all that my words can say.</p> +<p class="poetry">But when I came to myself, in a friend’s +house sick I lay<br /> +Amid strange blended noises, and my own mind wandering there;<br +/> +<a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>Delirium +in me indeed and around me everywhere.<br /> +That passed, and all things grew calmer, I with them: all the +stress<br /> +That the last three months had been on me now sank to +helplessness.<br /> +I bettered, and then they told me the tale of what had betid;<br +/> +And first, that under the name of a friend of theirs I was +hid,<br /> +Who was slain by mere misadventure, and was English as was I,<br +/> +And no rebel, and had due papers wherewith I might well slip +by<br /> +When I was somewhat better. Then I knew, though they had +not told,<br /> +How all was fallen together, and my heart grew sick and cold.<br +/> +And yet indeed thenceforward I strove my life to live,<br /> +That e’en as I was and so hapless I yet might live to +strive.<br /> +It was but few words they told me of that murder great and +grim,<br /> +And how with the blood of the guiltless the city’s streets +did swim,<br /> +And of other horrors they told not, except in a word or two,<br +/> +When they told of their scheme to save me from the hands of the +villainous crew,<br /> +Whereby I guessed what was happening in the main without +detail.<br /> +And so at last it came to their telling the other tale<br /> +Of my wife and my friend; though that also methought I knew too +well.<br /> +Well, they said that I had been wounded by the fragment of a +shell,<br /> +Another of which had slain her outright, as forth she ran<br /> +Toward Arthur struck by a bullet. She never touched the +man<br /> +Alive and she also alive; but thereafter as they lay<br /> +Both dead on one litter together, then folk who knew not us,<br +/> +But were moved by seeing the twain so fair and so piteous,<br /> +Took them for husband and wife who were fated there to die,<br /> +Or, it may be lover and lover indeed—but what know I?</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, you know that I ’scaped from Paris, +and crossed the narrow sea,<br /> +And made my way to the country where we twain were wont to be,<br +/> +And that is the last and the latest of the tale I have to +tell.<br /> +I came not here to be bidding my happiness farewell,<br /> +<a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>And to +nurse my grief and to win me the gain of a wounded life,<br /> +That because of the bygone sorrow may hide away from the +strife.<br /> +I came to look to my son, and myself to get stout and strong,<br +/> +That two men there might be hereafter to battle against the +wrong;<br /> +And I cling to the love of the past and the love of the day to +be,<br /> +And the present, it is but the building of the man to be strong +in me.</p> +<h2><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>CHANTS +FOR SOCIALISTS</h2> +<h3><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>THE +DAY IS COMING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Come</span> hither, lads, +and hearken, for a tale there is to tell,<br /> +Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than +well.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the tale shall be told of a country, a land +in the midst of the sea,<br /> +And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to +be.</p> +<p class="poetry">There more than one in a thousand in the days +that are yet to come<br /> +Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient +home.</p> +<p class="poetry">For then—laugh not, but listen to this +strange tale of mine—<br /> +All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than +swine.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then a man shall work and bethink him, and +rejoice in the deeds of his hand,<br /> +Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.</p> +<p class="poetry">Men in that time a-coming shall work and have +no fear<br /> +For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf +anear.</p> +<p class="poetry">I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then +shall be glad<br /> +Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he +had.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>For that which the worker winneth shall then be his +indeed,<br /> +Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no +seed.</p> +<p class="poetry">O strange new wonderful justice! But for +whom shall we gather the gain?<br /> +For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shall +labour in vain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours, and +no more shall any man crave<br /> +For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a +slave.</p> +<p class="poetry">And what wealth then shall be left us when none +shall gather gold<br /> +To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the sold?</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, what save the lovely city, and the little +house on the hill,<br /> +And the wastes and the woodland beauty, and the happy fields we +till;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of +the mighty dead;<br /> +And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet’s +teeming head;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the painter’s hand of wonder; and the +marvellous fiddle-bow,<br /> +And the banded choirs of music: all those that do and know.</p> +<p class="poetry">For all these shall be ours and all +men’s, nor shall any lack a share<br /> +Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when the world +grows fair.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry">Ah! such are the days that shall be! But +what are the deeds of to-day,<br /> +In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives +away?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are +three words to speak:<br /> +<span class="smcap">We will it</span>, and what is the foeman but +the dream-strong wakened and weak?</p> +<p class="poetry">O why and for what are we waiting? While +our brothers droop and die,<br /> +And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by.</p> +<p class="poetry">How long shall they reproach us where crowd on +crowd they dwell,<br /> +Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed hungry hell?</p> +<p class="poetry">Through squalid life they laboured, in sordid +grief they died,<br /> +Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England’s +pride.</p> +<p class="poetry">They are gone; there is none can undo it, nor +save our souls from the curse;<br /> +But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse?</p> +<p class="poetry">It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide +the door<br /> +For the rich man’s hurrying terror, and the slow-foot hope +of the poor.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and +their unlearned discontent,<br /> +We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be +spent.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry">Come, then, since all things call us, the +living and the dead,<br /> +And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is +shed.</p> +<p class="poetry">Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by +ease and rest,<br /> +For the CAUSE alone is worthy till the good days bring the +best.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can +fail,<br /> +Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still +prevail.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at +least, we know:<br /> +That the Dawn and the Day is coming, and forth the Banners +go.</p> +<h3><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>THE +VOICE OF TOIL</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">heard</span> men saying, +Leave hope and praying,<br /> + All days shall be as all have been;<br /> +To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,<br /> + The never-ending toil between.</p> +<p class="poetry">When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,<br +/> + In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;<br /> +Then great men led us, with words they fed us,<br /> + And bade us right the earthly wrong.</p> +<p class="poetry">Go read in story their deeds and glory,<br /> + Their names amidst the nameless dead;<br /> +Turn then from lying to us slow-dying<br /> + In that good world to which they led;</p> +<p class="poetry">Where fast and faster our iron master,<br /> + The thing we made, for ever drives,<br /> +Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure<br /> + For other hopes and other lives.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +66</span>Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel,<br /> + Forgetting that the world is fair;<br /> +Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish;<br /> + Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare.</p> +<p class="poetry">Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed +us<br /> + As we lie in the hell our hands have won?<br /> +For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,<br /> + The great are fallen, the wise men gone.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry">I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying,<br +/> + The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep;<br /> +Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger,<br /> + When day breaks over dreams and sleep?</p> +<p class="poetry">Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows +older!<br /> + Help lies in nought but thee and me;<br /> +Hope is before us, the long years that bore us<br /> + Bore leaders more than men may be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,<br +/> + And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,<br /> +While we the living our lives are giving<br /> + To bring the bright new world to birth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows +older<br /> + The Cause spreads over land and sea;<br /> +Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh<br /> + And joy at last for thee and me.</p> +<h3><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>NO +MASTER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Saith</span> man to man, +We’ve heard and known<br /> + That we no master need<br /> +To live upon this earth, our own,<br /> + In fair and manly deed.<br /> +The grief of slaves long passed away<br /> + For us hath forged the chain,<br /> +Till now each worker’s patient day<br /> + Builds up the House of Pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">And we, shall we too, crouch and quail,<br /> + Ashamed, afraid of strife,<br /> +And lest our lives untimely fail<br /> + Embrace the Death in Life?<br /> +Nay, cry aloud, and have no fear,<br /> + We few against the world;<br /> +Awake, arise! the hope we bear<br /> + Against the curse is hurled.</p> +<p class="poetry">It grows and grows—are we the same,<br /> + The feeble band, the few?<br /> +Or what are these with eyes aflame,<br /> + And hands to deal and do?<br /> +This is the host that bears the word,<br /> + <span class="smcap">No Master high or +low</span>—<br /> +A lightning flame, a shearing sword,<br /> + A storm to overthrow.</p> +<h3><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>ALL +FOR THE CAUSE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Hear</span> a word, a word +in season, for the day is drawing nigh,<br /> +When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to +die!</p> +<p class="poetry">He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one +hath gone before;<br /> +He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the life they +bore.</p> +<p class="poetry">Nothing ancient is their story, e’en but +yesterday they bled,<br /> +Youngest they of earth’s beloved, last of all the valiant +dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">E’en the tidings we are telling was the +tale they had to tell,<br /> +E’en the hope that our hearts cherish, was the hope for +which they fell.</p> +<p class="poetry">In the grave where tyrants thrust them, lies +their labour and their pain,<br /> +But undying from their sorrow springeth up the hope again.</p> +<p class="poetry">Mourn not therefore, nor lament it, that the +world outlives their life;<br /> +Voice and vision yet they give us, making strong our hands for +strife.</p> +<p class="poetry">Some had name, and fame, and honour, +learn’d they were, and wise and strong;<br /> +Some were nameless, poor, unlettered, weak in all but grief and +wrong.</p> +<p class="poetry">Named and nameless all live in us; one and all +they lead us yet<br /> +Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>Hearken how they cry, “O happy, happy ye that ye +were born<br /> +In the sad slow night’s departing, in the rising of the +morn.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Fair the crown the Cause hath for you, +well to die or well to live<br /> +Through the battle, through the tangle, peace to gain or peace to +give.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, it may be! Oft meseemeth, in the days +that yet shall be,<br /> +When no slave of gold abideth ’twixt the breadth of sea to +sea,</p> +<p class="poetry">Oft, when men and maids are merry, ere the +sunlight leaves the earth,<br /> +And they bless the day beloved, all too short for all their +mirth,</p> +<p class="poetry">Some shall pause awhile and ponder on the +bitter days of old,<br /> +Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the curse of +gold;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then ’twixt lips of loved and lover +solemn thoughts of us shall rise;<br /> +We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the brave and +wise.</p> +<p class="poetry">There amidst the world new-builded shall our +earthly deeds abide,<br /> +Though our names be all forgotten, and the tale of how we +died.</p> +<p class="poetry">Life or death then, who shall heed it, what we +gain or what we lose?<br /> +Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each shall +choose.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is +drawing nigh,<br /> +When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to +die!</p> +<h3><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>THE +MARCH OF THE WORKERS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">What</span> is this, the +sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear,<br /> +Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing +near,<br /> +Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear?<br /> + ’Tis the +people marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry">Whither go they, and whence come they? +What are these of whom ye tell?<br /> +In what country are they dwelling ’twixt the gates of +heaven and hell?<br /> +Are they mine or thine for money? Will they serve a master +well?<br /> + Still the +rumour’s marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Hark the +rolling of the thunder!<br /> + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder<br +/> + Riseth wrath, and hope, and +wonder,<br /> + And the host +comes marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry">Forth they come from grief and torment; on they +wend toward health and mirth,<br /> +All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the +earth.<br /> +Buy them, sell them for thy service! Try the bargain what +’tis worth,<br /> + For the days are +marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, +win thy wheat,<br /> +Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into +sweet,<br /> +All for thee this day—and ever. What reward for them +is meet<br /> + Till the host +comes marching on?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Hark the +rolling of the thunder!<br /> + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder<br +/> + Riseth wrath, and hope, and +wonder,<br /> + And the host +comes marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry">Many a hundred years passed over have they +laboured deaf and blind;<br /> +Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might +find.<br /> +Now at last they’ve heard and hear it, and the cry comes +down the wind,<br /> + And their feet +are marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry">O ye rich men hear and tremble! for with words +the sound is rife:<br /> +“Once for you and death we laboured; changed henceforward +is the strife.<br /> +We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men and life;<br +/> + And our host is +marching on.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Hark the +rolling of the thunder!<br /> + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder<br +/> + Riseth wrath, and hope, and +wonder,<br /> + And the host +comes marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Is it war, then? Will ye perish as +the dry wood in the fire?<br /> +Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our +desire.<br /> +Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never +tire;<br /> + And hope is +marching on.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>“On we march then, we the workers, and the rumour +that ye hear<br /> +Is the blended sound of battle and deliv’rance drawing +near;<br /> +For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear,<br /> + And the world is +marching on.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Hark the +rolling of the thunder!<br /> + Lo the sun! and lo thereunder<br +/> + Riseth wrath, and hope, and +wonder,<br /> + And the host +comes marching on.</p> +<h3><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>DOWN +AMONG THE DEAD MEN</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Come</span>, comrades, +come, your glasses clink;<br /> +Up with your hands a health to drink,<br /> +The health of all that workers be,<br /> +In every land, on every sea.<br /> + And he that will this health deny,<br /> + Down among the dead men, down among the dead men,<br +/> + Down, down, down, down,<br /> + Down among the dead men let him lie!</p> +<p class="poetry">Well done! now drink another toast,<br /> +And pledge the gath’ring of the host,<br /> +The people armed in brain and hand,<br /> +To claim their rights in every land.<br /> + And he that will, etc.</p> +<p class="poetry">There’s liquor left; come, let’s be +kind,<br /> +And drink the rich a better mind,<br /> +That when we knock upon the door,<br /> +They may be off and say no more.<br /> + And he that will, etc.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>Now, comrades, let the glass blush red,<br /> +Drink we the unforgotten dead<br /> +That did their deeds and went away,<br /> +Before the bright sun brought the day.<br /> + And he that will, etc.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Day? Ah, friends, late grows the +night;<br /> +Drink to the glimmering spark of light,<br /> +The herald of the joy to be,<br /> +The battle-torch of thee and me!<br /> + And he that will, etc.</p> +<p class="poetry">Take yet another cup in hand<br /> +And drink in hope our little band;<br /> +Drink strife in hope while lasteth breath,<br /> +And brotherhood in life and death;<br /> + And he that will this health deny,<br /> + Down among the dead men, down among the dead men,<br +/> + Down, down, down, down,<br /> + Down among the dead men let him lie!</p> +<h3><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>A +DEATH SONG</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">What</span> cometh here +from west to east awending?<br /> +And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?<br /> +We bear the message that the rich are sending<br /> +Aback to those who bade them wake and know.<br /> +<i>Not one</i>, <i>not one</i>, <i>nor thousands must they +slay</i>,<br /> +<i>But one and all if they would dusk the day</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">We asked them for a life of toilsome +earning,<br /> +They bade us bide their leisure for our bread;<br /> +We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning:<br /> +We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.<br /> +<i>Not one</i>, <i>not one</i>, <i>nor thousands must they +slay</i>,<br /> +<i>But one and all if they would dusk the day</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">They will not learn; they have no ears to +hearken.<br /> +They turn their faces from the eyes of fate;<br /> +Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.<br /> +But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.<br /> +<i>Not one</i>, <i>not one</i>, <i>nor thousands must they +slay</i>,<br /> +<i>But one and all if they would dusk the day</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;<br /> +Amidst the storm he won a prisoner’s rest;<br /> +But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen<br /> +Brings us our day of work to win the best.<br /> +<i>Not one</i>, <i>not one</i>, <i>nor thousands must they +slay</i>,<br /> +<i>But one and all if they would dusk the day</i>.</p> +<h3><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>MAY +DAY [1892]</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">THE WORKERS.</p> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">Earth</span>, once again +cometh Spring to deliver<br /> + Thy winter-worn heart, O thou friend of the Sun;<br +/> +Fair blossom the meadows from river to river<br /> + And the birds sing their triumph o’er winter +undone.</p> +<p class="poetry">O Earth, how a-toiling thou singest thy +labour<br /> + And upholdest the flower-crowned cup of thy +bliss,<br /> +As when in the feast-tide drinks neighbour to neighbour<br /> + And all words are gleeful, and nought is amiss.</p> +<p class="poetry">But we, we, O Mother, through long +generations,<br /> + We have toiled and been fruitful, but never with +thee<br /> +Might we raise up our bowed heads and cry to the nations<br /> + To look on our beauty, and hearken our glee.</p> +<p class="poetry">Unlovely of aspect, heart-sick and a-weary<br +/> + On the season’s fair pageant all dim-eyed we +gaze;<br /> +Of thy fairness we fashion a prison-house dreary<br /> + And in sorrow wear over each day of our days.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page78"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 78</span>THE EARTH.</p> +<p class="poetry">O children! O toilers, what foemen +beleaguer<br /> + The House I have built you, the Home I have won?<br +/> +Full great are my gifts, and my hands are all eager<br /> + To fill every heart with the deeds I have done.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE WORKERS.</p> +<p class="poetry">The foemen are born of thy body, O Mother,<br +/> + In our shape are they shapen, their voice is the +same;<br /> +And the thought of their hearts is as ours and no other;<br /> + It is they of our own house that bring us to +shame.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE EARTH.</p> +<p class="poetry">Are ye few? Are they many? What +words have ye spoken<br /> + To bid your own brethren remember the Earth?<br /> +What deeds have ye done that the bonds should be broken,<br /> + And men dwell together in good-will and mirth?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE WORKERS.</p> +<p class="poetry">They are few, we are many: and yet, O our +Mother,<br /> + Many years were we wordless and nought was our +deed,<br /> +But now the word flitteth from brother to brother:<br /> + We have furrowed the acres and scattered the +seed.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE EARTH.</p> +<p class="poetry">Win on then unyielding, through fair and foul +weather,<br /> + And pass not a day that your deed shall avail.<br /> +<a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>And in +hope every spring-tide come gather together<br /> + That unto the Earth ye may tell all your tale.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then this shall I promise, that I am abiding<br +/> + The day of your triumph, the ending of gloom,<br /> +And no wealth that ye will then my hand shall be hiding<br /> + And the tears of the spring into roses shall +bloom.</p> +<h3><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>MAY +DAY, 1894</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Clad</span> is the year in +all her best,<br /> + The land is sweet and sheen;<br /> +Now Spring with Summer at her breast,<br /> + Goes down the meadows green.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here are we met to welcome in<br /> + The young abounding year,<br /> +To praise what she would have us win<br /> + Ere winter draweth near.</p> +<p class="poetry">For surely all is not in vain,<br /> + This gallant show she brings;<br /> +But seal of hope and sign of gain,<br /> + Beareth this Spring of springs.</p> +<p class="poetry">No longer now the seasons wear<br /> + Dull, without any tale<br /> +Of how the chain the toilers bear<br /> + Is growing thin and frail.</p> +<p class="poetry">But hope of plenty and goodwill<br /> + Flies forth from land to land,<br /> +Nor any now the voice can still<br /> + That crieth on the hand.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>A little while shall Spring come back<br /> + And find the Ancient Home<br /> +Yet marred by foolish waste and lack,<br /> + And most enthralled by some.</p> +<p class="poetry">A little while, and then at last<br /> + Shall the greetings of the year<br /> +Be blent with wonder of the past<br /> + And all the griefs that were.</p> +<p class="poetry">A little while, and they that meet<br /> + The living year to praise,<br /> +Shall be to them as music sweet<br /> + That grief of bye-gone days.</p> +<p class="poetry">So be we merry to our best,<br /> + Now the land is sweet and sheen,<br /> +And Spring with Summer at her breast<br /> + Goes down the meadows green.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED IN +GREAT BRITAIN</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. +LTD.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">EDINBURGH AND LONDON</span></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE AND CHANTS FOR +SOCIALISTS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3262-h.htm or 3262-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/6/3262 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced from the 1915 Longmans, Green and Company edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE + +by William Morris + + + + +Contents: + + The Message of the March Wind + The Bridge and the Street + Sending to the War + Mother and Son + New Birth + The New Proletarian + In Prison--and at Home + The Half of Life Gone + A New Friend + Ready to Depart + A Glimpse of the Coming Day + Meeting The War-Machine + The Story's Ending + + + +THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND + + + +Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding + With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; +Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding + The green-growing acres with increase begun. + +Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying + Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field; +Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing + On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed. + +From township to township, o'er down and by tillage + Far, far have we wandered and long was the day, +But now cometh eve at the end of the village, + Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey. + +There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us + The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about; +The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us, + And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt. + +Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over + The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. +Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover; + This eve art thou given to gladness and me. + +Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken: + Three fields further on, as they told me down there, +When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken, + We might see from the hill-top the great city's glare. + +Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! From London it bloweth, + And telling of gold, and of hope and unrest; +Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth, + But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best. + +Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story + How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; +And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory + Has been but a burden they scarce might abide. + +Hark! the March wind again of a people is telling; + Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, +That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling + My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim. + +This land we have loved in our love and our leisure + For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach; +The wide hills o'er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, + The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach. + +The singers have sung and the builders have builded, + The painters have fashioned their tales of delight; +For what and for whom hath the world's book been gilded, + When all is for these but the blackness of night? + +How long and for what is their patience abiding? + How oft and how oft shall their story be told, +While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding + And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old? + + +Come back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire, + And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; +For there in a while shall be rest and desire, + And there shall the morrow's uprising be sweet. + +Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind us + And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night, +How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us; + For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light. + +Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished, + Like the autumn-sown wheat 'neath the snow lying green, +Like the love that o'ertook us, unawares and uncherished, + Like the babe 'neath thy girdle that groweth unseen, + +So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth - + Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear; +It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth; + It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear: + +For it beareth the message: "Rise up on the morrow + And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife; +Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow, + And seek for men's love in the short days of life." + +But lo, the old inn, and the lights and the fire, + And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; +Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, + And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet. + + + +THE BRIDGE AND THE STREET + + + +In the midst of the bridge there we stopped and we wondered + In London at last, and the moon going down, +All sullied and red where the mast-wood was sundered + By the void of the night-mist, the breath of the town. + +On each side lay the City, and Thames ran between it + Dark, struggling, unheard 'neath the wheels and the feet. +A strange dream it was that we ever had seen it, + And strange was the hope we had wandered to meet. + +Was all nought but confusion? What man and what master + Had each of these people that hastened along? +Like a flood flowed the faces, and faster and faster + Went the drift of the feet of the hurrying throng. + +Till all these seemed but one thing, and we twain another, + A thing frail and feeble and young and unknown; +What sign mid all these to tell foeman from brother? + What sign of the hope in our hearts that had grown? + + +We went to our lodging afar from the river, + And slept and forgot--and remembered in dreams; +And friends that I knew not I strove to deliver + From a crowd that swept o'er us in measureless streams, + +Wending whither I knew not: till meseemed I was waking + To the first night in London, and lay by my love, +And she worn and changed, and my very heart aching + With a terror of soul that forbade me to move. + +Till I woke, in good sooth, and she lay there beside me, + Fresh, lovely in sleep; but awhile yet I lay, +For the fear of the dream-tide yet seemed to abide me + In the cold and sad time ere the dawn of the day. + +Then I went to the window, and saw down below me + The market-wains wending adown the dim street, +And the scent of the hay and the herbs seemed to know me, + And seek out my heart the dawn's sorrow to meet. + +They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless faces + The dull houses stared on the prey they had trapped; +'Twas as though they had slain all the fair morning places + Where in love and in leisure our joyance had happed. + +My heart sank; I murmured, "What's this we are doing + In this grim net of London, this prison built stark +With the greed of the ages, our young lives pursuing + A phantom that leads but to death in the dark?" + +Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it striving, + And now here and there a few people went by. +As an image of what was once eager and living + Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to die. + +Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its pleasure + Was light, and unworthy, had been and was gone; +If hope had deceived us, if hid were its treasure, + Nought now would be left us of all life had won. + + +O love, stand beside me; the sun is uprisen + On the first day of London; and shame hath been here. +For I saw our new life like the bars of a prison, + And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear. + +Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes are chiding! + Yea, but life is no longer as stories of yore; +From us from henceforth no fair words shall be hiding + The nights of the wretched, the days of the poor. + +Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we have faltered, + For ourselves, for each other, while yet we were twain; +And no whit of the world by our sorrow was altered, + Our faintness grieved nothing, our fear was in vain. + +Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our passion, + We shall feel all henceforth as we felt it erewhile; +But now from all this the due deeds we shall fashion + Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without guile. + +Let us grieve then--and help every soul in our sorrow; + Let us fear--and press forward where few dare to go; +Let us falter in hope--and plan deeds for the morrow, + The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the foe. + +As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping, + And whose mouth yet remembers his sweetheart's embrace, +While all round about him the bullets are sweeping, + But stern and stout-hearted dies there in his place; + +Yea, so let our lives be! e'en such that hereafter, + When the battle is won and the story is told, +Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our laughter, + And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold. + +NOTE--This section had the following note in The Commonweal. It is the +intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in the +"Message of the March Wind" were already touched by sympathy with the +cause of the people. + + + +SENDING TO THE WAR + + + +It was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun, +But none of the neighbours were in it save the squire's thick-lipped son, +A youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away, +And left me glad of his going. There was little for us to say +Of the war and its why and wherefore--and we said it often enough; +The papers gave us our wisdom, and we used it up in the rough. +But I held my peace and wondered; for I thought of the folly of men, +The fair lives ruined and broken that ne'er could be mended again; +And the tale by lies bewildered, and no cause for a man to choose; +Nothing to curse or to bless--just a game to win or to lose. + +But here were the streets of London--strife stalking wide in the world; +And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. +And who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops displayed +The toys of rich men's folly, by blinded labour made; +And still from naught to nothing the bright-skinned horses drew +Dull men and sleek-faced women with never a deed to do; +While all about and around them the street-flood ebbed and flowed, +Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed 'neath the load. +Lo the sons of an ancient people! And for this they fought and fell +In the days by fame made glorious, in the tale that singers tell. + +We two we stood in the street in the midst of a mighty crowd, +The sound of its mingled murmur in the heavens above was loud, +And earth was foul with its squalor--that stream of every day, +The hurrying feet of labour, the faces worn and grey, +Were a sore and grievous sight, and enough and to spare had I seen +Of hard and pinching want midst our quiet fields and green; +But all was nothing to this, the London holiday throng. +Dull and with hang-dog gait they stood or shuffled along, +While the stench from the lairs they had lain in last night went up in +the wind, +And poisoned the sun-lit spring: no story men can find +Is fit for the tale of their lives; no word that man hath made +Can tell the hue of their faces, or their rags by filth o'er-laid: +For this hath our age invented--these are the sons of the free, +Who shall bear our name triumphant o'er every land and sea. +Read ye their souls in their faces, and what shall help you there? +Joyless, hopeless, shameless, angerless, set is their stare: +This is the thing we have made, and what shall help us now, +For the field hath been laboured and tilled and the teeth of the dragon +shall grow. + +But why are they gathered together? what is this crowd in the street? +This is a holiday morning, though here and there we meet +The hurrying tradesman's broadcloth, or the workman's basket of tools. +Men say that at last we are rending the snares of knaves and fools; +That a cry from the heart of the nation against the foe is hurled, +And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. +The soldiers are off to the war, we are here to see the sight, +And all our griefs shall be hidden by the thought of our country's might. +'Tis the ordered anger of England and her hope for the good of the Earth +That we to-day are speeding, and many a gift of worth +Shall follow the brand and the bullet, and our wrath shall be no curse, +But a blessing of life to the helpless--unless we are liars and worse - +And these that we see are the senders; these are they that speed +The dread and the blessing of England to help the world at its need. + +Sick unto death was my hope, and I turned and looked on my dear, +And beheld her frightened wonder, and her grief without a tear, +And knew how her thought was mine--when, hark! o'er the hubbub and noise, +Faint and a long way off, the music's measured voice, +And the crowd was swaying and swaying, and somehow, I knew not why, +A dream came into my heart of deliverance drawing anigh. +Then with roll and thunder of drums grew the music louder and loud, +And the whole street tumbled and surged, and cleft was the holiday crowd, +Till two walls of faces and rags lined either side of the way. +Then clamour of shouts rose upward, as bright and glittering gay +Came the voiceful brass of the band, and my heart beat fast and fast, +For the river of steel came on, and the wrath of England passed +Through the want and the woe of the town, and strange and wild was my +thought, +And my clenched hands wandered about as though a weapon they sought. + +Hubbub and din was behind them, and the shuffling haggard throng, +Wandering aimless about, tangled the street for long; +But the shouts and the rhythmic noise we still heard far away, +And my dream was become a picture of the deeds of another day. +Far and far was I borne, away o'er the years to come, +And again was the ordered march, and the thunder of the drum, +And the bickering points of steel, and the horses shifting about +'Neath the flashing swords of the captains--then the silence after the +shout - +Sun and wind in the street, familiar things made clear, +Made strange by the breathless waiting for the deeds that are drawing +anear. +For woe had grown into will, and wrath was bared of its sheath, +And stark in the streets of London stood the crop of the dragon's teeth. +Where then in my dream were the poor and the wall of faces wan? +Here and here by my side, shoulder to shoulder of man, +Hope in the simple folk, hope in the hearts of the wise, +For the happy life to follow, or death and the ending of lies, +Hope is awake in the faces angerless now no more, +Till the new peace dawn on the world, the fruit of the people's war. + +War in the world abroad a thousand leagues away, +While custom's wheel goes round and day devoureth day. +Peace at home!--what peace, while the rich man's mill is strife, +And the poor is the grist that he grindeth, and life devoureth life? + + + +MOTHER AND SON + + + +Now sleeps the land of houses, and dead night holds the street, +And there thou liest, my baby, and sleepest soft and sweet; +My man is away for awhile, but safe and alone we lie; +And none heareth thy breath but thy mother, and the moon looking down +from the sky +On the weary waste of the town, as it looked on the grass-edged road +Still warm with yesterday's sun, when I left my old abode, +Hand in hand with my love, that night of all nights in the year; +When the river of love o'erflowed and drowned all doubt and fear, +And we two were alone in the world, and once, if never again, +We knew of the secret of earth and the tale of its labour and pain. + +Lo amidst London I lift thee, and how little and light thou art, +And thou without hope or fear, thou fear and hope of my heart! +Lo here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life; +But how will it be if thou livest, and enterest into the strife, +And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee, +When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet 'twixt thee and me +Shall rise that wall of distance, that round each one doth grow, +And maketh it hard and bitter each other's thought to know? +Now, therefore, while yet thou art little and hast no thought of thine +own, +I will tell thee a word of the world, of the hope whence thou hast grown, + +Of the love that once begat thee, of the sorrow that hath made +Thy little heart of hunger, and thy hands on my bosom laid. +Then mayst thou remember hereafter, as whiles when people say +All this hath happened before in the life of another day; +So mayst thou dimly remember this tale of thy mother's voice, +As oft in the calm of dawning I have heard the birds rejoice, +As oft I have heard the storm-wind go moaning through the wood, +And I knew that earth was speaking, and the mother's voice was good. + +Now, to thee alone will I tell it that thy mother's body is fair, +In the guise of the country maidens who play with the sun and the air, +Who have stood in the row of the reapers in the August afternoon, +Who have sat by the frozen water in the highday of the moon, +When the lights of the Christmas feasting were dead in the house on the +hill, +And the wild geese gone to the salt marsh had left the winter still. +Yea, I am fair, my firstling; if thou couldst but remember me! +The hair that thy small hand clutcheth is a goodly sight to see; +I am true, but my face is a snare; soft and deep are my eyes, +And they seem for men's beguiling fulfilled with the dreams of the wise. +Kind are my lips, and they look as though my soul had learned +Deep things I have never heard of. My face and my hands are burned +By the lovely sun of the acres; three months of London-town +And thy birth-bed have bleached them indeed--"But lo, where the edge of +the gown" +(So said thy father one day) "parteth the wrist white as curd +From the brown of the hands that I love, bright as the wing of a bird." + +Such is thy mother, O firstling, yet strong as the maidens of old, +Whose spears and whose swords were the warders of homestead, of field and +of fold. +Oft were my feet on the highway, often they wearied the grass; +From dusk unto dusk of the summer three times in a week would I pass +To the downs from the house on the river through the waves of the +blossoming corn. +Fair then I lay down in the even, and fresh I arose on the morn, +And scarce in the noon was I weary. Ah, son, in the days of thy strife, +If thy soul could harbour a dream of the blossom of my life! +It would be as sunlit meadows beheld from a tossing sea, +And thy soul should look on a vision of the peace that is to be. + +Yet, yet the tears on my cheek! And what is this doth move +My heart to thy heart, beloved, save the flood of yearning love? +For fair and fierce is thy father, and soft and strange are his eyes +That look on the days that shall be with the hope of the brave and the +wise. +It was many a day that we laughed as over the meadows we walked, +And many a day I hearkened and the pictures came as he talked; +It was many a day that we longed, and we lingered late at eve +Ere speech from speech was sundered, and my hand his hand could leave. +Then I wept when I was alone, and I longed till the daylight came; +And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping dame +(No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes +Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the limes; +All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues leapt +Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from it +crept, +And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor, +And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open door. +The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he stood +Beyond the crimson daisies and the bush of southernwood. +Then side by side together through the grey-walled place we went, +And O the fear departed, and the rest and sweet content! + +Son, sorrow and wisdom he taught me, and sore I grieved and learned +As we twain grew into one; and the heart within me burned +With the very hopes of his heart. Ah, son, it is piteous, +But never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus; +So may these lonely words about thee creep and cling, +These words of the lonely night in the days of our wayfaring. +Many a child of woman to-night is born in the town, +The desert of folly and wrong; and of what and whence are they grown? +Many and many an one of wont and use is born; +For a husband is taken to bed as a hat or a ribbon is worn. +Prudence begets her thousands: "Good is a housekeeper's life, +So shall I sell my body that I may be matron and wife." +"And I shall endure foul wedlock and bear the children of need." +Some are there born of hate--many the children of greed. +"I, I too can be wedded, though thou my love hast got." +"I am fair and hard of heart, and riches shall be my lot." +And all these are the good and the happy, on whom the world dawns fair. +O son, when wilt thou learn of those that are born of despair, +As the fabled mud of the Nile that quickens under the sun +With a growth of creeping things, half dead when just begun? +E'en such is the care of Nature that man should never die, +Though she breed of the fools of the earth, and the dregs of the city +sty. +But thou, O son, O son, of very love wert born, +When our hope fulfilled bred hope, and fear was a folly outworn; +On the eve of the toil and the battle all sorrow and grief we weighed, +We hoped and we were not ashamed, we knew and we were not afraid. + +Now waneth the night and the moon--ah, son, it is piteous +That never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus. +But sure from the wise and the simple shall the mighty come to birth; +And fair were my fate, beloved, if I be yet on the earth +When the world is awaken at last, and from mouth to mouth they tell +Of thy love and thy deeds and thy valour, and thy hope that nought can +quell. + + + +NEW BIRTH + + + +It was twenty-five years ago that I lay in my mother's lap +New born to life, nor knowing one whit of all that should hap: +That day was I won from nothing to the world of struggle and pain, +Twenty-five years ago--and to-night am I born again. + +I look and behold the days of the years that are passed away, +And my soul is full of their wealth, for oft were they blithe and gay +As the hours of bird and of beast: they have made me calm and strong +To wade the stream of confusion, the river of grief and wrong. + +A rich man was my father, but he skulked ere I was born, +And gave my mother money, but left her life to scorn; +And we dwelt alone in our village: I knew not my mother's "shame," +But her love and her wisdom I knew till death and the parting came. +Then a lawyer paid me money, and I lived awhile at a school, +And learned the lore of the ancients, and how the knave and the fool +Have been mostly the masters of earth: yet the earth seemed fair and +good +With the wealth of field and homestead, and garden and river and wood; +And I was glad amidst it, and little of evil I knew +As I did in sport and pastime such deeds as a youth might do, +Who deems he shall live for ever. Till at last it befel on a day +That I came across our Frenchman at the edge of the new-mown hay, +A-fishing as he was wont, alone as he always was; +So I helped the dark old man to bring a chub to grass, +And somehow he knew of my birth, and somehow we came to be friends, +Till he got to telling me chapters of the tale that never ends; +The battle of grief and hope with riches and folly and wrong. +He told how the weak conspire, he told of the fear of the strong; +He told of dreams grown deeds, deeds done ere time was ripe, +Of hope that melted in air like the smoke of his evening pipe; +Of the fight long after hope in the teeth of all despair; +Of battle and prison and death, of life stripped naked and bare. +But to me it all seemed happy, for I gilded all with the gold +Of youth that believes not in death, nor knoweth of hope grown cold. +I hearkened and learned, and longed with a longing that had no name, +Till I went my ways to our village and again departure came. + +Wide now the world was grown, and I saw things clear and grim, +That awhile agone smiled on me from the dream-mist doubtful and dim. +I knew that the poor were poor, and had no heart or hope; +And I knew that I was nothing with the least of evils to cope; +So I thought the thoughts of a man, and I fell into bitter mood, +Wherein, except as a picture, there was nought on the earth that was +good; +Till I met the woman I love, and she asked, as folk ask of the wise, +Of the root and meaning of things that she saw in the world of lies. +I told her all I knew, and the tale told lifted the load +That made me less than a man; and she set my feet on the road. + +So we left our pleasure behind to seek for hope and for life, +And to London we came, if perchance there smouldered the embers of strife +Such as our Frenchman had told of; and I wrote to him to ask +If he would be our master, and set the learners their task. +But "dead" was the word on the letter when it came back to me, +And all that we saw henceforward with our own eyes must we see. +So we looked and wondered and sickened; not for ourselves indeed: +My father by now had died, but he left enough for my need; +And besides, away in our village the joiner's craft had I learned, +And I worked as other men work, and money and wisdom I earned. +Yet little from day to day in street or workshop I met +To nourish the plant of hope that deep in my heart had been set. +The life of the poor we learned, and to me there was nothing new +In their day of little deeds that ever deathward drew. +But new was the horror of London that went on all the while +That rich men played at their ease for name and fame to beguile +The days of their empty lives, and praised the deeds they did, +As though they had fashioned the earth and found out the sun long hid; +Though some of them busied themselves from hopeless day to day +With the lives of the slaves of the rich and the hell wherein they lay. +They wrought meseems as those who should make a bargain with hell, +That it grow a little cooler, and thus for ever to dwell. + +So passed the world on its ways, and weary with waiting we were. +Men ate and drank and married; no wild cry smote the air, +No great crowd ran together to greet the day of doom; +And ever more and more seemed the town like a monstrous tomb +To us, the Pilgrims of Hope, until to-night it came, +And Hope on the stones of the street is written in letters of flame. + +This is how it befel: a workmate of mine had heard +Some bitter speech in my mouth, and he took me up at the word, +And said: "Come over to-morrow to our Radical spouting-place; +For there, if we hear nothing new, at least we shall see a new face; +He is one of those Communist chaps, and 'tis like that you two may +agree." +So we went, and the street was as dull and as common as aught you could +see; +Dull and dirty the room. Just over the chairman's chair +Was a bust, a Quaker's face with nose cocked up in the air; +There were common prints on the wall of the heads of the party fray, +And Mazzini dark and lean amidst them gone astray. +Some thirty men we were of the kind that I knew full well, +Listless, rubbed down to the type of our easy-going hell. +My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat +While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and of that. +And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed +Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named. +He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue, +And even as he began it seemed as though I knew +The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before. +He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he bore, +A word that he could not refrain from many a million of men. +Nor aught seemed the sordid room and the few that were listening then +Save the hall of the labouring earth and the world which was to be. +Bitter to many the message, but sweet indeed unto me, +Of man without a master, and earth without a strife, +And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life: +Of peace and good-will he told, and I knew that in faith he spake, +But his words were my very thoughts, and I saw the battle awake, +And I followed from end to end; and triumph grew in my heart +As he called on each that heard him to arise and play his part +In the tale of the new-told gospel, lest as slaves they should live and +die. + +He ceased, and I thought the hearers would rise up with one cry, +And bid him straight enrol them; but they, they applauded indeed, +For the man was grown full eager, and had made them hearken and heed: +But they sat and made no sign, and two of the glibber kind +Stood up to jeer and to carp his fiery words to blind. +I did not listen to them, but failed not his voice to hear +When he rose to answer the carpers, striving to make more clear +That which was clear already; not overwell, I knew, +He answered the sneers and the silence, so hot and eager he grew; +But my hope full well he answered, and when he called again +On men to band together lest they live and die in vain, +In fear lest he should escape me, I rose ere the meeting was done, +And gave him my name and my faith--and I was the only one. +He smiled as he heard the jeers, and there was a shake of the hand, +He spoke like a friend long known; and lo! I was one of the band. + +And now the streets seem gay and the high stars glittering bright; +And for me, I sing amongst them, for my heart is full and light. +I see the deeds to be done and the day to come on the earth, +And riches vanished away and sorrow turned to mirth; +I see the city squalor and the country stupor gone. +And we a part of it all--we twain no longer alone +In the days to come of the pleasure, in the days that are of the fight - +I was born once long ago: I am born again to-night. + + + +THE NEW PROLETARIAN + + + +How near to the goal are we now, and what shall we live to behold? +Will it come a day of surprise to the best of the hopeful and bold? +Shall the sun arise some morning and see men falling to work, +Smiling and loving their lives, not fearing the ill that may lurk +In every house on their road, in the very ground that they tread? +Shall the sun see famine slain, and the fear of children dead? +Shall he look adown on men set free from the burden of care, +And the earth grown like to himself, so comely, clean and fair? +Or else will it linger and loiter, till hope deferred hath spoiled +All bloom of the life of man--yea, the day for which we have toiled? +Till our hearts be turned to stone by the griefs that we have borne, +And our loving kindness seared by love from our anguish torn. +Till our hope grow a wrathful fire, and the light of the second birth +Be a flame to burn up the weeds from the lean impoverished earth. + +What's this? Meseems it was but a little while ago +When the merest sparkle of hope set all my heart aglow! +The hope of the day was enough; but now 'tis the very day +That wearies my hope with longing. What's changed or gone away? +Or what is it drags at my heart-strings?--is it aught save the coward's +fear? +In this little room where I sit is all that I hold most dear - +My love, and the love we have fashioned, my wife and the little lad. +Yet the four walls look upon us with other eyes than they had, +For indeed a thing hath happened. Last week at my craft I worked, +Lest oft in the grey of the morning my heart should tell me I shirked; +But to-day I work for us three, lest he and she and I +In the mud of the street should draggle till we come to the workhouse or +die. + +Not long to tell is the story, for, as I told you before, +A lawyer paid me the money which came from my father's store. +Well, now the lawyer is dead, and a curious tangle of theft, +It seems, is what he has lived by, and none of my money is left. +So I who have worked for my pleasure now work for utter need: +In "the noble army of labour" I now am a soldier indeed. + +"You are young, you belong to the class that you love," saith the rich +man's sneer; +"Work on with your class and be thankful." All that I hearken to hear, +Nor heed the laughter much; have patience a little while, +I will tell you what's in my heart, nor hide a jot by guile. +When I worked pretty much for my pleasure I really worked with a will, +It was well and workmanlike done, and my fellows knew my skill, +And deemed me one of themselves though they called me gentleman Dick, +Since they knew I had some money; but now that to work I must stick, +Or fall into utter ruin, there's something gone, I find; +The work goes, cleared is the job, but there's something left behind; +I take up fear with my chisel, fear lies 'twixt me and my plane, +And I wake in the merry morning to a new unwonted pain. +That's fear: I shall live it down--and many a thing besides +Till I win the poor dulled heart which the workman's jacket hides. +Were it not for the Hope of Hopes I know my journey's end, +And would wish I had ne'er been born the weary way to wend. + +Now further, well you may think we have lived no gentleman's life, +My wife is my servant, and I am the servant of my wife, +And we make no work for each other; but country folk we were, +And she sickened sore for the grass and the breath of the fragrant air +That had made her lovely and strong; and so up here we came +To the northern slopes of the town to live with a country dame, +Who can talk of the field-folks' ways: not one of the newest the house, +The woodwork worn to the bone, its panels the land of the mouse, +Its windows rattling and loose, its floors all up and down; +But this at least it was, just a cottage left in the town. +There might you sit in our parlour in the Sunday afternoon +And watch the sun through the vine-leaves and fall to dreaming that soon +You would see the grey team passing, their fetlocks wet with the brook, +Or the shining mountainous straw-load: there the summer moon would look +Through the leaves on the lampless room, wherein we sat we twain, +All London vanished away; and the morn of the summer rain +Would waft us the scent of the hay; or the first faint yellow leaves +Would flutter adown before us and tell of the acres of sheaves. + +All this hath our lawyer eaten, and to-morrow must we go +To a room near my master's shop, in the purlieus of Soho. +No words of its shabby meanness! But that is our prison-cell +In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell +The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering spark +As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering in the dark. + +Again the rich man jeereth: "The man is a coward, or worse - +He bewails his feeble pleasure; he quails before the curse +Which many a man endureth with calm and smiling face." +Nay, the man is a man, by your leave! Or put yourself in his place, +And see if the tale reads better. The haven of rest destroyed, +And nothing left of the life that was once so well enjoyed +But leave to live and labour, and the glimmer of hope deferred. +Now know I the cry of the poor no more as a story heard, +But rather a wordless wail forced forth from the weary heart. +Now, now when hope ariseth I shall surely know my part. + + +There's a little more to tell. When those last words were said, +At least I was yet a-working, and earning daily bread. +But now all that is changed, and meseems adown the stair +That leads to the nethermost pit, man, wife and child must fare. + +When I joined the Communist folk, I did what in me lay +To learn the grounds of their faith. I read day after day +Whatever books I could handle, and heard about and about +What talk was going amongst them; and I burned up doubt after doubt, +Until it befel at last that to others I needs must speak +(Indeed, they pressed me to that while yet I was weaker than weak). +So I began the business, and in street-corners I spake +To knots of men. Indeed, that made my very heart ache, +So hopeless it seemed; for some stood by like men of wood; +And some, though fain to listen, but a few words understood; +And some but hooted and jeered: but whiles across some I came +Who were keen and eager to hear; as in dry flax the flame +So the quick thought flickered amongst them: and that indeed was a +feast. +So about the streets I went, and the work on my hands increased; +And to say the very truth betwixt the smooth and the rough +It was work and hope went with it, and I liked it well enough: +Nor made I any secret of all that I was at +But daily talked in our shop and spoke of this and of that. + +Then vanished my money away, and like a fool I told +Some one or two of the loss. Did that make the master bold? +Before I was one of his lot, and as queer as my head might be +I might do pretty much as I liked. Well now he sent for me +And spoke out in very words my thought of the rich man's jeer: +"Well, sir, you have got your wish, as far as I can hear, +And are now no thief of labour, but an honest working man: +Now I'll give you a word of warning: stay in it as long as you can, +This working lot that you like so: you're pretty well off as you are. +So take another warning: I have thought you went too far, +And now I am quite sure of it; so make an end of your talk +At once and for ever henceforth, or out of my shop you walk; +There are plenty of men to be had who are quite as good as you. +And mind you, anywhere else you'll scarce get work to do, +Unless you rule your tongue;--good morning; stick to your work." + +The hot blood rose to my eyes, somewhere a thought did lurk +To finish both him and the job: but I knew now what I was, +And out of the little office in helpless rage did I pass +And went to my work, a SLAVE, for the sake of my child and my sweet. +Did men look for the brand on my forehead that eve as I went through the +street? +And what was the end after all? Why, one of my shopmates heard +My next night's speech in the street, and passed on some bitter word, +And that week came a word with my money: "You needn't come again." +And the shame of my four days' silence had been but grief in vain. + +Well I see the days before me: this time we shall not die +Nor go to the workhouse at once: I shall get work by-and-by, +And shall work in fear at first, and at last forget my fear, +And drudge on from day to day, since it seems that I hold life dear. +'Tis the lot of many millions! Yet if half of those millions knew +The hope that my heart hath learned, we should find a deed to do, +And who or what should withstand us? And I, e'en I might live +To know the love of my fellows and the gifts that earth can give. + + + +IN PRISON--AND AT HOME + + + +The first of the nights is this, and I cannot go to bed; +I long for the dawning sorely, although when the night shall be dead, +Scarce to me shall the day be alive. Twice twenty-eight nights more, +Twice twenty-eight long days till the evil dream be o'er! +And he, does he count the hours as he lies in his prison-cell? +Does he nurse and cherish his pain? Nay, I know his strong heart well, +Swift shall his soul fare forth; he is here, and bears me away, +Till hand in hand we depart toward the hope of the earlier day. +Yea, here or there he sees it: in the street, in the cell, he sees +The vision he made me behold mid the stems of the blossoming trees, +When spring lay light on the earth, and first and at last I knew +How sweet was his clinging hand, how fair were the deeds he would do. + +Nay, how wilt thou weep and be soft and cherish a pleasure in pain, +When the days and their task are before thee and awhile thou must work +for twain? +O face, thou shalt lose yet more of thy fairness, be thinner no doubt, +And be waxen white and worn by the day that he cometh out! +Hand, how pale thou shalt be! how changed from the sunburnt hand +That he kissed as it handled the rake in the noon of the summer land! + +Let me think then it is but a trifle: the neighbours have told me so; +"Two months! why that is nothing and the time will speedily go." +'Tis nothing--O empty bed, let me work then for his sake! +I will copy out the paper which he thought the News might take, +If my eyes may see the letters; 'tis a picture of our life +And the little deeds of our days ere we thought of prison and strife. + +Yes, neighbour, yes I am early--and I was late last night; +Bedless I wore through the hours and made a shift to write. +It was kind of you to come, nor will it grieve me at all +To tell you why he's in prison and how the thing did befal; +For I know you are with us at heart, and belike will join us soon. +It was thus: we went to a meeting on Saturday afternoon, +At a new place down in the West, a wretched quarter enough, +Where the rich men's houses are elbowed by ragged streets and rough, +Which are worse than they seem to be. (Poor thing! you know too well +How pass the days and the nights within that bricken hell!) +There, then, on a bit of waste we stood 'twixt the rich and the poor; +And Jack was the first to speak; that was he that you met at the door +Last week. It was quiet at first; and dull they most of them stood +As though they heeded nothing, nor thought of bad or of good, +Not even that they were poor, and haggard and dirty and dull: +Nay, some were so rich indeed that they with liquor were full, +And dull wrath rose in their souls as the hot words went by their ears, +For they deemed they were mocked and rated by men that were more than +their peers. +But for some, they seemed to think that a prelude was all this +To the preachment of saving of souls, and hell, and endless bliss; +While some (O the hearts of slaves!) although they might understand, +When they heard their masters and feeders called thieves of wealth and of +land, +Were as angry as though THEY were cursed. Withal there were some that +heard, +And stood and pondered it all, and garnered a hope and a word. +Ah! heavy my heart was grown as I gazed on the terrible throng. +Lo! these that should have been the glad and the deft and the strong, +How were they dull and abased as the very filth of the road! +And who should waken their souls or clear their hearts of the load? + +The crowd was growing and growing, and therewith the jeering grew; +And now that the time was come for an ugly brawl I knew, +When I saw how midst of the workmen some well-dressed men there came, +Of the scum of the well-to-do, brutes void of pity or shame; +The thief is a saint beside them. These raised a jeering noise, +And our speaker quailed before it, and the hubbub drowned his voice. +Then Richard put him aside and rose at once in his place, +And over the rags and the squalor beamed out his beautiful face, +And his sweet voice rang through the tumult, and I think the crowd would +have hushed +And hearkened his manly words; but a well-dressed reptile pushed +Right into the ring about us and screeched out infamies +That sickened the soul to hearken; till he caught my angry eyes +And my voice that cried out at him, and straight on me he turned, +A foul word smote my heart and his cane on my shoulders burned. +But e'en as a kestrel stoops down Richard leapt from his stool +And drave his strong right hand amidst the mouth of the fool. +Then all was mingled together, and away from him was I torn, +And, hustled hither and thither, on the surging crowd was borne; +But at last I felt my feet, for the crowd began to thin, +And I looked about for Richard that away from thence we might win; +When lo, the police amidst us, and Richard hustled along +Betwixt a pair of blue-coats as the doer of all the wrong! + +Little longer, friend, is the story; I scarce have seen him again; +I could not get him bail despite my trouble and pain; +And this morning he stood in the dock: for all that that might avail, +They might just as well have dragged him at once to the destined jail. +The police had got their man and they meant to keep him there, +And whatever tale was needful they had no trouble to swear. + +Well, the white-haired fool on the bench was busy it seems that day, +And so with the words "Two months," he swept the case away; +Yet he lectured my man ere he went, but not for the riot indeed +For which he was sent to prison, but for holding a dangerous creed. +"What have you got to do to preach such perilous stuff? +To take some care of yourself should find you work enough. +If you needs must preach or lecture, then hire a chapel or hall; +Though indeed if you take my advice you'll just preach nothing at all, +But stick to your work: you seem clever; who knows but you might rise, +And become a little builder should you condescend to be wise? +For in spite of your silly sedition, the land that we live in is free, +And opens a pathway to merit for you as well as for me." + +Ah, friend, am I grown light-headed with the lonely grief of the night, +That I babble of this babble? Woe's me, how little and light +Is this beginning of trouble to all that yet shall be borne - +At worst but as the shower that lays but a yard of the corn +Before the hailstorm cometh and flattens the field to the earth. + +O for a word from my love of the hope of the second birth! +Could he clear my vision to see the sword creeping out of the sheath +Inch by inch as we writhe in the toils of our living death! +Could he but strengthen my heart to know that we cannot fail; +For alas, I am lonely here--helpless and feeble and frail; +I am e'en as the poor of the earth, e'en they that are now alive; +And where is their might and their cunning with the mighty of men to +strive? +Though they that come after be strong to win the day and the crown, +Ah, ever must we the deedless to the deedless dark go down, +Still crying, "To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow yet shall be +The new-born sun's arising o'er happy earth and sea" - +And we not there to greet it--for to-day and its life we yearn, +And where is the end of toiling and whitherward now shall we turn +But to patience, ever patience, and yet and yet to bear; +And yet, forlorn, unanswered as oft before to hear, +Through the tales of the ancient fathers and the dreams that mock our +wrong, +That cry to the naked heavens, "How long, O Lord! how long?" + + + +THE HALF OF LIFE GONE + + + +The days have slain the days, and the seasons have gone by +And brought me the summer again; and here on the grass I lie +As erst I lay and was glad ere I meddled with right and with wrong. +Wide lies the mead as of old, and the river is creeping along +By the side of the elm-clad bank that turns its weedy stream, +And grey o'er its hither lip the quivering rushes gleam. +There is work in the mead as of old; they are eager at winning the hay, +While every sun sets bright and begets a fairer day. +The forks shine white in the sun round the yellow red-wheeled wain, +Where the mountain of hay grows fast; and now from out of the lane +Comes the ox-team drawing another, comes the bailiff and the beer, +And thump, thump, goes the farmer's nag o'er the narrow bridge of the +weir. +High up and light are the clouds, and though the swallows flit +So high o'er the sunlit earth, they are well a part of it, +And so, though high over them, are the wings of the wandering herne; +In measureless depths above him doth the fair sky quiver and burn; +The dear sun floods the land as the morning falls toward noon, +And a little wind is awake in the best of the latter June. + +They are busy winning the hay, and the life and the picture they make, +If I were as once I was, I should deem it made for my sake; +For here if one need not work is a place for happy rest, +While one's thought wends over the world, north, south, and east and +west. +There are the men and the maids, and the wives and the gaffers grey +Of the fields I know so well, and but little changed are they +Since I was a lad amongst them; and yet how great is the change! +Strange are they grown unto me; yea, I to myself am strange. +Their talk and their laughter mingling with the music of the meads +Has now no meaning to me to help or to hinder my needs, +So far from them have I drifted. And yet amidst them goes +A part of myself, my boy, and of pleasure and pain he knows, +And deems it something strange when he is other than glad. +Lo now! the woman that stoops and kisses the face of the lad, +And puts a rake in his hand and laughs in his laughing face - +Whose is the voice that laughs in the old familiar place? +Whose should it be but my love's, if my love were yet on the earth? +Could she refrain from the fields where my joy and her joy had birth, +When I was there and her child, on the grass that knew her feet +Mid the flowers that led her on when the summer eve was sweet? + +No, no, it is she no longer; never again can she come +And behold the hay-wains creeping o'er the meadows of her home; +No more can she kiss her son or put the rake in his hand +That she handled a while agone in the midst of the haymaking band. +Her laughter is gone and her life; there is no such thing on the earth, +No share for me then in the stir, no share in the hurry and mirth. + +Nay, let me look and believe that all these will vanish away, +At least when the night has fallen, and that she will be there mid the +hay, +Happy and weary with work, waiting and longing for love. +There will she be, as of old, when the great moon hung above, +And lightless and dead was the village, and nought but the weir was +awake; +There will she rise to meet me, and my hands will she hasten to take, +And thence shall we wander away, and over the ancient bridge +By many a rose-hung hedgerow, till we reach the sun-burnt ridge +And the great trench digged by the Romans: there then awhile shall we +stand, +To watch the dawn come creeping o'er the fragrant lovely land, +Till all the world awaketh, and draws us down, we twain, +To the deeds of the field and the fold and the merry summer's gain. + +Ah thus, only thus shall I see her, in dreams of the day or the night, +When my soul is beguiled of its sorrow to remember past delight. +She is gone. She was and she is not; there is no such thing on the earth +But e'en as a picture painted; and for me there is void and dearth +That I cannot name or measure. + Yet for me and all these she died, +E'en as she lived for awhile, that the better day might betide. +Therefore I live, and I shall live till the last day's work shall fail. +Have patience now but a little and I will tell you the tale +Of how and why she died, and why I am weak and worn, +And have wandered away to the meadows and the place where I was born: +But here and to-day I cannot; for ever my thought will stray +To that hope fulfilled for a little and the bliss of the earlier day. +Of the great world's hope and anguish to-day I scarce can think: +Like a ghost from the lives of the living and their earthly deeds I +shrink. +I will go adown by the water and over the ancient bridge, +And wend in our footsteps of old till I come to the sun-burnt ridge, +And the great trench digged by the Romans; and thence awhile will I gaze, +And see three teeming counties stretch out till they fade in the haze; +And in all the dwellings of man that thence mine eyes shall see, +What man as hapless as I am beneath the sun shall be? + +O fool, what words are these? Thou hast a sorrow to nurse, +And thou hast been bold and happy; but these, if they utter a curse, +No sting it has and no meaning--it is empty sound on the air. +Thy life is full of mourning, and theirs so empty and bare +That they have no words of complaining; nor so happy have they been +That they may measure sorrow or tell what grief may mean. +And thou, thou hast deeds to do, and toil to meet thee soon; +Depart and ponder on these through the sun-worn afternoon. + + + +A NEW FRIEND + + + +I have promised to tell you the story of how I was left alone +Sick and wounded and sore, and why the woman is gone +That I deemed a part of my life. Tell me when all is told, +If you deem it fit that the earth, that the world of men should hold +My work and my weariness still; yet think of that other life, +The child of me and of her, and the years and the coming strife. + +After I came out of prison our living was hard to earn +By the work of my hands, and of hers; to shifts we had to turn, +Such as the poor know well, and the rich cannot understand, +And just out of the gutter we stood, still loving and hand in hand. + +Do you ask me if still amidst all I held the hunt in view, +And the hope of the morning of life, all the things I should do and undo? +Be easy, I am not a coward: nay little prudence I learned, +I spoke and I suffered for speaking, and my meat by my manhood was +burned. +When the poor man thinks--and rebels, the whip lies ready anear; +But he who is rebel and rich may live safe for many a year, +While he warms his heart with pictures of all the glory to come. +There's the storm of the press and the critics maybe, but sweet is his +home, +There is meat in the morn and the even, and rest when the day is done, +All is fair and orderly there as the rising and setting sun - +And I know both the rich and the poor. + Well, I grew bitter they said; +'Tis not unlike that I did, for bitter indeed was my bread, +And surely the nursling plant shall smack of its nourishing soil. +And here was our life in short, pinching and worry and toil, +One petty fear thrust out by another come in its place, +Each scrap of life but a fear, and the sum of it wretched and base. +E'en so fare millions of men, where men for money are made, +Where the poor are dumb and deedless, where the rich are not afraid. +Ah, am I bitter again? Well, these are our breeding-stock, +The very base of order, and the state's foundation rock; +Is it so good and so safe that their manhood should be outworn +By the struggle for anxious life, the dull pain dismally borne, +Till all that was man within them is dead and vanished away? +Were it not even better that all these should think on a day +As they look on each other's sad faces, and see how many they are: +"What are these tales of old time of men who were mighty in war? +They fought for some city's dominion, for the name of a forest or field; +They fell that no alien's token should be blazoned on their shield; +And for this is their valour praised and dear is their renown, +And their names are beloved for ever and they wear the patriot's crown; +And shall we then wait in the streets and this heap of misery, +Till their stones rise up to help us or the far heavens set us free? +For we, we shall fight for no name, no blazon on banner or shield; +But that man to man may hearken and the earth her increase yield; +That never again in the world may be sights like we have seen; +That never again in the world may be men like we have been, +That never again like ours may be manhood spoilt and blurred." + +Yea even so was I bitter, and this was my evilest word: +"Spend and be spent for our hope, and you at least shall be free, +Though you be rugged and coarse, as wasted and worn as you be." +Well, "bitter" I was, and denounced, and scarcely at last might we stand +From out of the very gutter, as we wended hand in hand. +I had written before for the papers, but so "bitter" was I grown, +That none of them now would have me that could pay me half-a-crown, +And the worst seemed closing around us; when as it needs must chance, +I spoke at some Radical Club of the Great Revolution in France. +Indeed I said nothing new to those who had learned it all, +And yet as something strange on some of the folk did it fall. +It was late in the terrible war, and France to the end drew nigh, +And some of us stood agape to see how the war would die, +And what would spring from its ashes. So when the talk was o'er +And after the stir and excitement I felt the burden I bore +Heavier yet for it all, there came to speak to me +A serious well-dressed man, a "gentleman," young I could see; +And we fell to talk together, and he shyly gave me praise, +And asked, though scarcely in words, of my past and my "better days." +Well, there,--I let it all out, and I flushed as I strode along, +(For we were walking by now) and bitterly spoke of the wrong. +Maybe I taught him something, but ready he was to learn, +And had come to our workmen meetings some knowledge of men to learn. +He kindled afresh at my words, although to try him I spake +More roughly than I was wont; but every word did he take +For what it was really worth, nor even laughter he spared, +As though he would look on life of its rags of habit bared. + +Well, why should I be ashamed that he helped me at my need? +My wife and my child, must I kill them? And the man was a friend indeed, +And the work that he got me I did (it was writing, you understand) +As well as another might do it. To be short, he joined our band +Before many days were over, and we saw him everywhere +That we workmen met together, though I brought him not to my lair. +Eager he grew for the Cause, and we twain grew friend and friend: +He was dainty of mind and of body; most brave, as he showed in the end; +Merry despite of his sadness, quick-witted and speedy to see: +Like a perfect knight of old time as the poets would have them to be. +That was the friend that I won by my bitter speech at last. +He loved me; he grieved my soul: now the love and the grief are past; +He is gone with his eager learning, his sadness and his mirth, +His hope and his fond desire. There is no such thing on the earth. +He died not unbefriended--nor unbeloved maybe. +Betwixt my life and his longing there rolls a boundless sea. +And what are those memories now to all that I have to do, +The deeds to be done so many, the days of my life so few? + + + +READY TO DEPART + + + +I said of my friend new-found that at first he saw not my lair; +Yet he and I and my wife were together here and there; +And at last as my work increased and my den to a dwelling grew, +He came there often enough, and yet more together we drew. +Then came a change in the man; for a month he kept away, +Then came again and was with us for a fortnight every day, +But often he sat there silent, which was little his wont with us. +And at first I had no inkling of what constrained him thus; +I might have thought that he faltered, but now and again there came, +When we spoke of the Cause and its doings, a flash of his eager flame, +And he seemed himself for a while; then the brightness would fade away, +And he gloomed and shrank from my eyes. + Thus passed day after day, +And grieved I grew, and I pondered: till at last one eve we sat +In the fire-lit room together, and talked of this and that, +But chiefly indeed of the war and what would come of it; +For Paris drew near to its fall, and wild hopes 'gan to flit +Amidst us Communist folk; and we talked of what might be done +When the Germans had gone their ways and the two were left alone, +Betrayers and betrayed in war-worn wasted France. + +As I spoke the word "betrayed," my eyes met his in a glance, +And swiftly he turned away; then back with a steady gaze +He turned on me; and it seemed as when a sword-point plays +Round the sword in a battle's beginning and the coming on of strife. +For I knew though he looked on me, he saw not me, but my wife: +And he reddened up to the brow, and the tumult of the blood +Nigh blinded my eyes for a while, that I scarce saw bad or good, +Till I knew that he was arisen and had gone without a word. +Then I turned about unto her, and a quivering voice I heard +Like music without a meaning, and twice I heard my name. +"O Richard, Richard!" she said, and her arms about me came, +And her tears and the lips that I loved were on my face once more. +A while I clung to her body, and longing sweet and sore +Beguiled my heart of its sorrow; then we sundered and sore she wept, +While fair pictures of days departed about my sad heart crept, +And mazed I felt and weary. But we sat apart again, +Not speaking, while between us was the sharp and bitter pain +As the sword 'twixt the lovers bewildered in the fruitless marriage bed. +Yet a while, and we spoke together, and I scarce knew what I said, +But it was not wrath or reproaching, or the chill of love-born hate; +For belike around and about us, we felt the brooding fate. +We were gentle and kind together, and if any had seen us so, +They had said, "These two are one in the face of all trouble and woe." +But indeed as a wedded couple we shrank from the eyes of men, +As we dwelt together and pondered on the days that come not again. + +Days passed and we dwelt together; nor Arthur came for awhile; +Gravely it was and sadly, and with no greeting smile, +That we twain met at our meetings: but no growth of hate was yet, +Though my heart at first would be sinking as our thoughts and our eyes +they met: +And when he spake amidst us and as one we two agreed, +And I knew of his faith and his wisdom, then sore was my heart indeed. +We shrank from meeting alone: for the words we had to say +Our thoughts would nowise fashion--not yet for many a day. + +Unhappy days of all days! Yet O might they come again! +So sore as my longing returneth to their trouble and sorrow and pain! + +But time passed, and once we were sitting, my wife and I in our room, +And it was in the London twilight and the February gloom, +When there came a knock, and he entered all pale, though bright were his +eyes, +And I knew that something had happened, and my heart to my mouth did +arise. +"It is over," he said "--and beginning; for Paris has fallen at last, +And who knows what next shall happen after all that has happened and +passed? +There now may we all be wanted." + I took up the word: "Well then +Let us go, we three together, and there to die like men." + +"Nay," he said, "to live and be happy like men." Then he flushed up red, +And she no less as she hearkened, as one thought through their bodies had +sped. +Then I reached out my hand unto him, and I kissed her once on the brow, +But no word craving forgiveness, and no word of pardon e'en now, +Our minds for our mouths might fashion. + In the February gloom +And into the dark we sat planning, and there was I in the room, +And in speech I gave and I took; but yet alone and apart +In the fields where I once was a youngling whiles wandered the thoughts +of my heart, +And whiles in the unseen Paris, and the streets made ready for war. +Night grew and we lit the candles, and we drew together more, +And whiles we differed a little as we settled what to do, +And my soul was cleared of confusion as nigher the deed-time drew. + +Well, I took my child into the country, as we had settled there, +And gave him o'er to be cherished by a kindly woman's care, +A friend of my mother's, but younger: and for Arthur, I let him give +His money, as mine was but little, that the boy might flourish and live, +Lest we three, or I and Arthur, should perish in tumult and war, +And at least the face of his father he should look on never more. +You cry out shame on my honour? But yet remember again +That a man in my boy was growing; must my passing pride and pain +Undo the manhood within him and his days and their doings blight? +So I thrust my pride away, and I did what I deemed was right, +And left him down in our country. + And well may you think indeed +How my sad heart swelled at departing from the peace of river and mead, +But I held all sternly aback and again to the town did I pass. +And as alone I journeyed, this was ever in my heart: +"They may die; they may live and be happy; but for me I know my part, +In Paris to do my utmost, and there in Paris to die!" +And I said, "The day of the deeds and the day of deliverance is nigh." + + + +A GLIMPSE OF THE COMING DAY + + + +It was strange indeed, that journey! Never yet had I crossed the sea +Or looked on another people than the folk that had fostered me, +And my heart rose up and fluttered as in the misty night +We came on the fleet of the fishers slow rolling in the light +Of the hidden moon, as the sea dim under the false dawn lay; +And so like shadows of ships through the night they faded away, +And Calais pier was upon us. Dreamlike it was indeed +As we sat in the train together, and toward the end made speed. +But a dull sleep came upon me, and through the sleep a dream +Of the Frenchman who once was my master by the side of the willowy +stream; +And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, +And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, +While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. +Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, +I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, +And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, +By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped and +bent, +And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things fair and innocent. +And there sat my wife before me, and she, too, dreamed as she slept; +For the slow tears fell from her eyelids as in her sleep she wept. +But Arthur sat by my side and waked; and flushed was his face, +And his eyes were quick to behold the picture of each fair place +That we flashed by as on we hurried; and I knew that the joy of life +Was strongly stirred within him by the thought of the coming strife. +Then I too thought for a little, It is good in grief's despite, +It is good to see earth's pictures, and so live in the day and the light. +Yea, we deemed that to death we were hastening, and it made our vision +clear, +And we knew the delight of our life-days, and held their sorrow dear. + +But now when we came unto Paris and were out in the sun and the street, +It was strange to see the faces that our wondering eyes did meet; +Such joy and peace and pleasure! That folk were glad we knew, +But knew not the why and the wherefore; and we who had just come through +The vanquished land and down-cast, and there at St. Denis e'en now +Had seen the German soldiers, and heard their bugles blow, +And the drum and fife go rattling through the freshness of the morn - +Yet here we beheld all joyous the folk they had made forlorn! +So at last from a grey stone building we saw a great flag fly, +One colour, red and solemn 'gainst the blue of the spring-tide sky, +And we stopped and turned to each other, and as each at each did we gaze, +The city's hope enwrapped us with joy and great amaze. + +As folk in a dream we washed and we ate, and in all detail, +Oft told and in many a fashion, did we have all yesterday's tale: +How while we were threading our tangle of trouble in London there, +And I for my part, let me say it, within but a step of despair, +In Paris the day of days had betid; for the vile dwarf's stroke, +To madden Paris and crush her, had been struck and the dull sword broke; +There was now no foe and no fool in the city, and Paris was free; +And e'en as she is this morning, to-morrow all France will be. +We heard, and our hearts were saying, "In a little while all the earth--" +And that day at last of all days I knew what life was worth; +For I saw what few have beheld, a folk with all hearts gay. +Then at last I knew indeed that our word of the coming day, +That so oft in grief and in sorrow I had preached, and scarcely knew +If it was but despair of the present or the hope of the day that was due +- +I say that I saw it now, real, solid and at hand. + +And strange how my heart went back to our little nook of the land, +And how plain and clear I saw it, as though I longed indeed +To give it a share of the joy and the satisfaction of need +That here in the folk I beheld. For this in our country spring +Did the starlings bechatter the gables, and the thrush in the thorn-bush +sing, +And the green cloud spread o'er the willows, and the little children +rejoice +And shout midst a nameless longing to the morning's mingled voice; +For this was the promise of spring-tide, and the new leaves longing to +burst, +And the white roads threading the acres, and the sun-warmed meadows +athirst. +Once all was the work of sorrow and the life without reward, +And the toil that fear hath bidden, and the folly of master and lord; +But now are all things changing, and hope without a fear +Shall speed us on through the story of the changes of the year. +Now spring shall pluck the garland that summer weaves for all, +And autumn spread the banquet and winter fill the hall. +O earth, thou kind bestower, thou ancient fruitful place, +How lovely and beloved now gleams thy happy face! + +And O mother, mother, I said, hadst thou known as I lay in thy lap, +And for me thou hopedst and fearedst, on what days my life should hap, +Hadst thou known of the death that I look for, and the deeds wherein I +should deal, +How calm had been thy gladness! How sweet hadst thou smiled on my weal! +As some woman of old hadst thou wondered, who hath brought forth a god of +the earth, +And in joy that knoweth no speech she dreams of the happy birth. + +Yea, fair were those hours indeed, whatever hereafter might come, +And they swept over all my sorrow, and all thought of my wildered home. +But not for dreams of rejoicing had we come across the sea: +That day we delivered the letters that our friends had given to me, +And we craved for some work for the cause. And what work was there +indeed, +But to learn the business of battle and the manner of dying at need? +We three could think of none other, and we wrought our best therein; +And both of us made a shift the sergeant's stripes to win, +For diligent were we indeed: and he, as in all he did, +Showed a cheerful ready talent that nowise might be hid, +And yet hurt the pride of no man that he needs must step before. +But as for my wife, the brancard of the ambulance-women she wore, +And gently and bravely would serve us; and to all as a sister to be - +A sister amidst of the strangers--and, alas! a sister to me. + + + +MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE + + + +So we dwelt in the war-girdled city as a very part of its life. +Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife, +I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the first, +The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst. +But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our own; +And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages had +sown, +Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the dead; +Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that her +lovers have shed, +With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day, +With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn away, +With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the jostle of +war, +With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar. + +O Earth, Earth, look on thy lovers, who knew all thy gifts and thy gain, +But cast them aside for thy sake, and caught up barren pain! +Indeed of some art thou mindful, and ne'er shalt forget their tale, +Till shrunk are the floods of thine ocean and thy sun is waxen pale. +But rather I bid thee remember e'en these of the latter days, +Who were fed by no fair promise and made drunken by no praise. +For them no opening heaven reached out the martyr's crown; +No folk delivered wept them, and no harvest of renown +They reaped with the scythe of battle; nor round their dying bed +Did kindly friendly farewell the dew of blessing shed; +In the sordid streets of the city mid a folk that knew them not, +In the living death of the prison didst thou deal them out their lot, +Yet foundest them deeds to be doing; and no feeble folk were they +To scowl on their own undoing and wail their lives away; +But oft were they blithe and merry and deft from the strife to wring +Some joy that others gained not midst their peaceful wayfaring. +So fared they, giftless ever, and no help of fortune sought. +Their life was thy deliverance, O Earth, and for thee they fought; +Mid the jeers of the happy and deedless, mid failing friends they went +To their foredoomed fruitful ending on the love of thee intent. + +Yea and we were a part of it all, the beginning of the end, +That first fight of the uttermost battle whither all the nations wend; +And yet could I tell you its story, you might think it little and mean. +For few of you now will be thinking of the day that might have been, +And fewer still meseemeth of the day that yet shall be, +That shall light up that first beginning and its tangled misery. +For indeed a very machine is the war that now men wage; +Nor have we hold of its handle, we gulled of our heritage, +We workmen slaves of machines. Well, it ground us small enough +This machine of the beaten Bourgeois; though oft the work was rough +That it turned out for its money. Like other young soldiers at first +I scarcely knew the wherefore why our side had had the worst; +For man to man and in knots we faced the matter well; +And I thought, well to-morrow or next day a new tale will be to tell. +I was fierce and not afraid; yet O were the wood-sides fair, +And the crofts and the sunny gardens, though death they harboured there! +And few but fools are fain of leaving the world outright, +And the story over and done, and an end of the life and the light. +No hatred of life, thou knowest, O Earth, mid the bullets I bore, +Though pain and grief oppressed me that I never may suffer more. +But in those days past over did life and death seem one; +Yea the life had we attained to which could never be undone. + +You would have me tell of the fighting? Well, you know it was new to me, +Yet it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and ever would be. +The morn when we made that sally, some thought (and yet not I) +That a few days and all would be over: just a few had got to die, +And the rest would be happy thenceforward. But my stubborn country blood +Was bidding me hold my halloo till we were out of the wood. +And that was the reason perhaps why little disheartened I was, +As we stood all huddled together that night in a helpless mass, +As beaten men are wont: and I knew enough of war +To know midst its unskilled labour what slips full often are. + +There was Arthur unhurt beside me, and my wife come back again, +And surely that eve between us there was love though no lack of pain +As we talked all the matter over, and our hearts spake more than our +lips; +And we said, "We shall learn, we shall learn--yea, e'en from disasters +and slips." + +Well, many a thing we learned, but we learned not how to prevail +O'er the brutal war-machine, the ruthless grinder of bale; +By the bourgeois world it was made, for the bourgeois world; and we, +We were e'en as the village weaver 'gainst the power-loom, maybe. +It drew on nearer and nearer, and we 'gan to look to the end - +We three, at least--and our lives began with death to blend; +Though we were long a-dying--though I dwell on yet as a ghost +In the land where we once were happy, to look on the loved and the lost. + + + +THE STORY'S ENDING + + + +How can I tell you the story of the Hope and its defence? +We wrought in a narrow circle; it was hither and thither and thence; +To the walls, and back for a little; to the fort and there to abide, +Grey-beards and boys and women; they lived there--and they died; +Nor counted much in the story. I have heard it told since then, +And mere lies our deeds have turned to in the mouths of happy men, +And e'en those will be soon forgotten as the world wends on its way, +Too busy for truth or kindness. Yet my soul is seeing the day +When those who are now but children the new generation shall be, +And e'en in our land of commerce and the workshop over the sea, +Amid them shall spring up the story; yea the very breath of the air +To the yearning hearts of the workers true tale of it all shall bear. +Year after year shall men meet with the red flag over head, +And shall call on the help of the vanquished and the kindness of the +dead. +And time that weareth most things, and the years that overgrow +The tale of the fools triumphant, yet clearer and clearer shall show +The deeds of the helpers of menfolk to every age and clime, +The deeds of the cursed and the conquered that were wise before their +time. + +Of these were my wife and my friend; there they ended their wayfaring +Like the generations before them thick thronging as leaves of the spring, +Fast falling as leaves of the autumn as the ancient singer hath said, +And each one with a love and a story. Ah the grief of the early dead! + "What is all this talk?" you are saying; "why all this long delay?" +Yes, indeed, it is hard in the telling. Of things too grievous to say +I would be, but cannot be, silent. Well, I hurry on to the end - +For it drew to the latter ending of the hope that we helped to defend. +The forts were gone and the foemen drew near to the thin-manned wall, +And it wanted not many hours to the last hour and the fall, +And we lived amid the bullets and seldom went away +To what as yet were the streets by night-tide or by day. +We three, we fought together, and I did the best I could, +Too busy to think of the ending; but Arthur was better than good; +Resourceful, keen and eager, from post to post he ran, +To thrust out aught that was moving and bring up the uttermost man, +He was gone on some such errand, and was absent a little space, +When I turned about for a moment and saw my wife's fair face, +And her foot set firm on the rampart, as she hastened here and there, +To some of our wounded comrades such help as she could to bear. +Then straight she looked upon me with such lovely, friendly eyes +Of the days gone by and remembered, that up from my heart 'gan rise +The choking sobbing passion; but I kept it aback, and smiled, +And waved my hand aloft--But therewith her face turned wild +In a moment of time, and she stared along the length of the wall, +And I saw a man who was running and crouching, stagger and fall, +And knew it for Arthur at once; but voiceless toward him she ran, +I with her, crying aloud. But or ever we reached the man, +Lo! a roar and a crash around us and my sick brain whirling around, +And a white light turning to black, and no sky and no air and no ground, +And then what I needs must tell of as a great blank; but indeed +No words to tell of its horror hath language for my need: +As a map is to a picture, so is all that my words can say. + +But when I came to myself, in a friend's house sick I lay +Amid strange blended noises, and my own mind wandering there; +Delirium in me indeed and around me everywhere. +That passed, and all things grew calmer, I with them: all the stress +That the last three months had been on me now sank to helplessness. +I bettered, and then they told me the tale of what had betid; +And first, that under the name of a friend of theirs I was hid, +Who was slain by mere misadventure, and was English as was I, +And no rebel, and had due papers wherewith I might well slip by +When I was somewhat better. Then I knew, though they had not told, +How all was fallen together, and my heart grew sick and cold. +And yet indeed thenceforward I strove my life to live, +That e'en as I was and so hapless I yet might live to strive. +It was but few words they told me of that murder great and grim, +And how with the blood of the guiltless the city's streets did swim, +And of other horrors they told not, except in a word or two, +When they told of their scheme to save me from the hands of the +villainous crew, +Whereby I guessed what was happening in the main without detail. +And so at last it came to their telling the other tale +Of my wife and my friend; though that also methought I knew too well. +Well, they said that I had been wounded by the fragment of a shell, +Another of which had slain her outright, as forth she ran +Toward Arthur struck by a bullet. She never touched the man +Alive and she also alive; but thereafter as they lay +Both dead on one litter together, then folk who knew not us, +But were moved by seeing the twain so fair and so piteous, +Took them for husband and wife who were fated there to die, +Or, it may be lover and lover indeed--but what know I? + +Well, you know that I 'scaped from Paris, and crossed the narrow sea, +And made my way to the country where we twain were wont to be, +And that is the last and the latest of the tale I have to tell. +I came not here to be bidding my happiness farewell, +And to nurse my grief and to win me the gain of a wounded life, +That because of the bygone sorrow may hide away from the strife. +I came to look to my son, and myself to get stout and strong, +That two men there might be hereafter to battle against the wrong; +And I cling to the love of the past and the love of the day to be, +And the present, it is but the building of the man to be strong in me. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Pilgrims of Hope, by William Morris + diff --git a/old/plghp10.zip b/old/plghp10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f52c22f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/plghp10.zip |
